Fourth Avenue House Singapore, Richard Ho Architects

‘Sustainable and green design has to begin with the design, not by buying technology. This house is unique in that all the spaces, except for the bedrooms, are designed for natural ventilation, with no air- conditioning, and almost all the materials used are recycled or recyclable. It is an evolution of the black-and-white house with no apologies for its cultural origin.’—Richard Ho

The cubed pavilion facing the street, flanked on both sides by neighbouring houses, gives no hint of the unfolding journey behind it.

Seen from the street, the house sits like a temple on a hill.

The Fourth Avenue House is designed for three generations. The owner is a return client who wanted a house which would be unique to him and which would carry over some of the character and memories of his old house. At the same time, it was to be a modern home, appropriate in every way to a highly successful businessman.

It was a perfect assignment for Richard Ho whose name is synonymous in Singapore for both quality heritage work and his ability to reconcile contemporary needs with cultural continuity. ‘The architect’ says Ho, ‘is a facilitator of the transition to the modern world, to the acquisition of taste.’ Part of this role, he adds, is to help imbue his Asian clients with a sense of confidence of being in the modern world—’without the need for a Prada handbag’.

The section reveals how the house steps up in levels.

Although the house is a new build, it offered Ho the opportunity to explore ways of generating personal and cultural continuity, nowhere better illustrated than in the circular window with its inserted traditional Chinese carved square window in the main stairwell, and with the carved timber highlight windows connecting the living and entertainment rooms with the dining area.

But before this house became an example of person and cultural continuity, it was an exercise in environmental sustainability. It is situated in a cul-de-sac and on a steeply sloping site with a drop of three metres. From the street, the site steps up the hillside, giving the house, with its wide eaves, porticoed entry and verandah and granite pool steps, a temple-like aura and inviting the visitor to make his way up several flights of ceremonial stairs.

The idea of climbing steps to a temple is echoed in the concrete faceting of the pool terrace.

The site is also in a tree conservation area where all 40 of the existing trees have been retained to contribute to a lush garden setting. Its prominent high position not only gives the house sensational views over the city but also the opportunity to capture breezes. Ho has exploited this by creating expansive verandahs sheltered by wide eaves, and ensuring that the dining, living and entertainment spaces, all well set back, are effectively ‘outdoor rooms’ because they are all fully connected to the outside by large sliding doors which disappear into the walls. The cross- ventilation is so effective that air-conditioning is unnecessary in these downstairs spaces. ‘You feel like you are living in a pavilion,’ says Ho.

The wrap-around verandah, with its reconstituted granite columns and generous eaves giving protection from the sun and rain, is deliberately contrived to elicit memories of colonial black-and-white houses, while the courtyard screens and dining area hint at the Chinese courtyard house. This cultural reference is reinforced by the carved timber screen at the rear of the dining area, which rises up through an atrium space, masking the lift, separating the private and public domains and creating a vertical connection between the three levels of the house—besides conjuring up the memory of a Chinese shophouse.

The private areas on the top level of the main pavilion.

The first storey plan again hints at a temple with a plan that suggests the Katsura Imperial Villa in

Kyoto, Japan.

The void looking down into the dining area from the upper level private areas.

The ornamental carved timber screen masks the lift and private areas from the public areas.

The traditional square within a circle window in the stairway reminds the occupants of their previous home.

Timber figures prominently throughout this 25,000-square foot house. Different woods are used for the courtyard screens, windows and atrium screen. Recycled timber is used to clad the house, for the dining area interior, and for the decking and flooring, using different treatments and assembled to create visual variety. The granite and timber theme is continued throughout. In the master bathroom, for example, a single slab of peach tree, a native of China that bears a variety of Chinese cultural associations, forms a bench, while the free-standing shower is granite- lined.

The children’s wing steps down into a lush garden.

The living room draws on the colonial bungalow model with its deeply recessed verandahs and direct connection with the wrap-around terrace.

The huge custom-designed circular dining table sits not so much in a dining room as in a spacious deck linked to the living areas and a dry kitchen and breakfast bar.

The main living area opens up completely to the terrace and garden on one side and the dining space on the other.

The public spaces are all located on the entry level whereas the private areas are on the top level, with the parents in the main pavilion and the children in the side wing. If, for the guest, the sense of arrival has a ceremonial quality to it, for the inhabitants it is a sense of homecoming, which begins with the four-car garage followed by entry into the atrium with its black granite pond. This bottom level also contains a home entertainment room.

The clear separation of public and private spaces in the Fourth Avenue House has allowed architect Richard Ho to create a wonderful feeling of refuge and prospect on the arrival level. Here, there is internal prospect as the kitchen, living, dining, entertainment and verandah spaces all flow easily from one to the other. At the same, all these spaces are directly connected with the outside landscape, drawing the eye first to the lawn and trees, then to the city beyond.