Project Details
Project Description
The Arena House is a synthesis of two architecture typologies that toggles between extreme difference in programmatic scales to address the lifestyle needs of the owners. It is part arena and part house.
The gregarious couple, who are also avid sports fans, emphasized the importance of the living room not just for the family's private use but also the need to accommodate their frequent hosting of parties and screening of movies and live sporting events for big groups of friends.
The intermediate terrace house design departs from the conventional "layered cake" spatial organization, a typology that is often driven by the desire to maximize floor plates and real estate within the allowable building envelop in the high property prices market in Singapore. The bedrooms, kitchen and dining area are organized to the rear end of the site while creating a high ceiling living room at the front to mimic the spatial relationship between the seating bowl and the event space of an arena.
On an event day when the owners' guests congregate to enjoy the screening of a live sporting event or movie, the sliding doors and curtains of the bedrooms at 2nd storey and the master bedroom at attic level retract to become box seats in addition to the seating structure at first storey. Collectively, they transform into a segment of the arena seating bowl with a sixteenfold increase in occupancy.
On a regular day, the "arena space" reverts to the domestic scale in response to the family needs at a more intimate level. The curtains and sliding door of the bedrooms could be drawn to define the individual private spaces for each family member. The seating structure, which was also designed as a stepped shelving system for storage of books and display of collectibles, becomes the living room for the family. Each occupant could engage in their own individual or communal activities on the separate tiers or the open event space at the first storey.
The checkerboard facade and boundary gate offer glimpses of the programmatic alternation between a regular domestic day and an "arena" event day from the exterior, alluding to an unconventional typological addition to the homogeneously subdivided residential district.
