Design area – 3500
Land Extent – N/A
Core Spaces – Entrance Verandah, Living, Dining, Kitchen, Pantry, Office room, Guest bed room with common toilet, TV Lounge, study, Library, Master bed room with wash room, three additional bed rooms at upper floor, personalized balconies.
Year – 2015
Another fine example of, extremely poor-planned house, “designed” by a non professional. Wasted spaces, unmatching vivid architectural languages, untamed usage of curved plan forms, were the key observations of this house, which was no loger older than 15 years. It is obvious complete rejection of spaces occur when they don’t fulfill the needs of its inhabitants. It was clear that the previous non-professional who planned the house had no idea what his client needs. Instead of listening from ears, he spent too much time on showing his drafting skills. Thus, a professional approach was sought by the client, who eventually met the architect to re-design the entire house, which origninally had a floor area of 2800 square feet.
Architect, after visiting the house and observing the spaces, critically questioned their usage while emphasizing wasted spaces. He then came with a proper architectural breif by considering adaptive re-use concepts while further encouraging on proper architectural discipline and spaces. Every house should have a proper place for the kids to do their education activities, which was a seriously lacking part of the existing house. Architect stressed the necessity that a home should be primarily for the kids, not the adults. In architect’s personal view, most of the children in present day society become vulnerable to outside activities, including internet addiction, mainly because of their unpleasant built environment at home. Thus, architect made priorities for the concerns of the teenage kids who represents the future generation.
Comprehensive design with visualizations, minimizing the impacts of wasted space were done. Constraints of existing structural limits were also observed, which was managed with careful planning. After satisfying on architect’s design proposal, the client further insisted on an additional mezzanine floor for a library space, encouraging architect’s decision on child education. The approach of the client shall be appreciated at this point. Further, the client sought landscape architectural consultancy, where our landscape architect further involved on re-planning overall landscape with proper plant species.
The architect considers this project as a successful renovation, converting an unlivable dwelling to a livable dwelling.
