The client’s top requirements for the house were privacy and security. How did this shape your design approach and what were the features that fulfilled this?

Seetoh Kum Loon (SKL): It led us to this idea of a fort-like courtyard house. We ring-fenced the compound with a five-metre-high wall to provide security, both physically and visually. Such a design also made a lot of sense because the generous plot of land allowed the inside to remain open for the client’s children to wander and explore.

Alan Tay (AT): The challenge was making a quality space out of this very introverted format. We looked to other courtyard houses for answers. One was the late Geoffrey Bawa’s 33rd Lane House in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where courtyards bring light and breeze into the deep plan. It was very intimate, but the scale was significantly smaller than what we were working with. Then we found the House of the Faun in Pompeii, one of the most luxurious villas built during the Roman Republic, which had multiple courtyards with cloisters that linked the different spaces together.

I was attracted to the House of the Faun because it was a house for entertainment, which is in sync with the idea of modern luxury. A home with many different spaces for entertainment suited the client’s desire for the house to be a family space for day-to-day living, but also to host huge parties as well as cosy smaller affairs.

Houses with internal courtyards are common in the tropics. How does Cloister House reinterpret this typology?

SKL: Traditional courtyard houses are symmetrical, hierarchical and highly ordered spaces. They possess a certain formality that guides expectations of behaviour. Cloister House is non-hierarchical, meaning there is no order to the relationship between the courtyards and the spaces. We find such a fluid structure important for modern families. Our client has young kids whose lifestyles will change over time. They also host visitors from time to time. In a sense, we have created a house with opportunities for change, and a framework that could continually adjust and adapt for different uses.

AT: The house is spatially delineated into a matrix of 12 rectangles that is punctuated with a series of courtyards and interspersed cloisters. Thus, one could see the Cloister House as having no corridors, or at the same time, only corridors. It is a highly efficient plan that transforms the traditional concept of cloisters, which are typically regarded as wasted areas, into living spaces and for circulation. Cloisters have also been where one experiences moments through space. For instance, in cathedrals, the cloister forms the connection with nature and is ambiguous in how the spatial experience is both of being inside and outside. We try to achieve that with having courtyards of different sizes that allow for gardens of different themes and characters.

A distinct feature of the house is its roof which was originally pyramidal pavilions capped with a skylight. What led you to flip it and how did that transform the project?

SKL: The plan of the house was very deep, so we did not want a single roof which would be too big. It had to be cut up to bring in natural daylight and ventilation to every part of the house. The initial idea was for a multi-pitch roof that each had a skylight, but such a pyramidal roof overextended the height of the house because the walls are already quite high.

AT: While looking at the model, we flipped the roof for a split second and realised it achieved a few things. It scaled the house down by changing the relationship of the roof with the interiors. The sloping roofs suggested that the courtyards were part of the living spaces. It also turned the skylights into sky wells which facilitated natural ventilation and brought rainwater into the courtyards.

Such a design also brought about cost savings. As the roofs were now hidden from sight, we could use a simpler material that was easy to maintain. And we could dedicate our resources to finishing the ceiling better as they could be seen all around the house. In fact, they were the most expensive element. The Merbau timber ceilings were handmade by a single craftsman. He took several months to reconcile the geometry because the roofs slope at different angles, but the workmanship was worth it.

How has the family taken to the house since its completion in 2018?

AT: We believe strongly in designing houses where our clients can become active participants in them. That means they become aware of their lifestyles and make adjustments, so the house becomes alive. One of the requirements for the house was for it to be air-conditioned. But we are big believers of tropical design and that air-conditioning dulls one’s senses.

So, we were very happy that the family has rarely used the air-conditioning since they moved in. In fact, they showed us how they created cross-ventilation by opening particular windows in the different courtyards. The family also moved furniture around as they learnt which areas around the courtyards were shaded by growing plants or had singing birds. It was lovely to see how they were actively shaping their lifestyles in response to the house!

SKL: This is why we hardly specified any built-in furniture for this house, so that the family can rearrange furniture pieces to create new spaces. As the courtyards come in assorted sizes, the roofs also slope differently and create cloisters of varying levels of intimacy for different activities.

Formwerkz Architects is known for its experimental residential designs. How might Cloister House represent new ideas about the future of landed housing?

AT: We enjoy marrying different typologies to create new types of houses that go beyond typical expectations. The Cloister House has taught us several things: firstly, it offers a new form of luxury living in the tropics. Luxury has always been tied to the idea of mansions that are tall, of certain sizes and home to fancy rooms. The single-storey house is almost always seen as inferior. But the Cloister House shows how you can still live richly and have a wealth of experiences within.

Secondly, we believe the house can start a conversation in Singapore regarding the creative use of building envelope control or the setbacks between a house and its surroundings. There will be many more opportunities for single-storey houses similar to the Cloister House to be built if we can look at density differently.