Home Tour: Maison Forteresse, a ‘do not disturb’ semi-detached house in Telok Blangah

If the “do not disturb” sign commonly found on hotel room doors is to be translated into a semi-detached house, it would look like Maison Forteresse, the latest project by YWA Studio. Responsible for this impression is the solid wall that makes up most of the front façade, rising two-and-a-half storeys. Coloured in graphite-grey textured paint, it is dark and broody at the same time.

House: Semi-detached house
Size: 8,620 sq ft

Maison Forteresse

“The client is very particular about privacy,” says Tan Yue Wei, the Principal Architect and Founder of YWA. “Apart from the inverted-L-shaped cutout, everything else is pretty closed up at the front – hence the name we gave it.”

Staircase air well

While it is natural to assume that the interiors keep up with the forbidding external design, the converse is true, for the most part. In fact, there is an organically shaped, 3-storey air well (pictured above), plastered in pure white, that makes up its heart.

A balance of fierce and gentle

A long-term friendship with the owners allowed Tan to conceptualise the 8,620 sq ft Maison Forteresse to reflect their tastes and preferences: a clean and minimalist style, combined with a love for the Japanese street and grunge aesthetic. It explains a lot about how the interiors came to be a balance of light and dark, fierce and gentle.

First Storey

For instance, the first storey has an open floor plan with the TV wall and dry kitchen wrapped in black laminates. These are juxtaposed against sand-coloured tiles and floor-to-ceiling doors and windows that let daylight stream in generously.

Dining Room

The rear, especially, is the polar opposite of the front. Occupied by the dining room, there is complete transparency to the outside, which is understandable, given the view is of the luxuriant foliage of rows of mature tropical trees.

“Since there was the opportunity to look at all that greenery, we used floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors and kept it open to evoke the feel of dining in the canopy,” says Tan.

Also contributing to the light narrative is the air well topped with a skylight. Stacked above a balcony just after the living room, its fluid form brings to mind the atriums found in Central Embassy, the luxury mall in Bangkok designed by Amanda Levete Architects.

Explains Tan, “Even as it breaks away from the linear design of the rest of the house, we wanted this to be the central axis where, when people come in, it’s like a talking point and an icebreaker.”

Entertainment Room

And there are a lot of people who do come in. For all its intentions to keep out prying eyes, the house does not shy away from being welcoming to the owners’ guests.

Pandering to this part of the brief, Tan saw to a substantially sized entertainment room (pictured above) on the lower floor. There, the tone converts back to being brooding, courtesy of carpentry wrapped in a laminate named Anthracite Eames Teak.

Swimming Pool

Adjacent to the man-cave is a terrace with a barbecue pit and, thereafter, a swimming pool that spans the width of the site, defying the dark with its bright blue mosaic tiles.

“They love to entertain, so we focused on ensuring the zoning is split with good spaces to host downstairs and not disturb the private places upstairs,” he adds.

Guest Rooms

That said, tired guests are welcomed on the second floor too, with three rooms set aside for them located there. All bear the minimalist style but with subtle differences, such as one with twin beds that has a deliberately muted gunmetal-grey feature wall that accentuates the framed view of the tree canopy outside the glass doors.

Dark Bedroom Design

Unsurprisingly, the bedrooms of the owners and their son are entirely swathed in laminates that echo the most moon-less of nights. The yin to all that yang is the air well that doubles up as a cheery companion on every level of the upper floors.

Right at the top, in the attic, an about-turn takes place. Orders from the feng shui master meant that it had to be bright. Blonde-toned Ibiza Nogal laminates clad the walls of the space that the owners have yet to decide if they want to make it a gym or study.

Balcony

A balcony completes this floor, forming the base of the inverted L found on the front façade. There, the owners have a wonderful vantage point from within their fortress to enjoy the view of the neighbourhood – all while remaining blissfully undisturbed.