Blossoms Villa is a penthouse created for a young and bold new-age family that migrated to the tropics from their temperate country. We sought to recreate a delightful moment in the winter season that the family will miss—where plum blossoms bloom amidst the cold winter, bringing a burst of myriad pinks to the white, snowy landscapes. The project thrives on the celebration of softness, from textures to colors, and consistently features the delicate curves that pervade the interiors, highlighted in shades of pink through different manifestations.
The main feature staircase is repositioned to flank the living spaces as it descends from the bedroom level. The open tread staircase with glass railing and asymmetrical pebble-shape steps optimises the views around it and is perhaps the best location to admire the 84-piece suspended glass sculptural cones installation. The collection of living areas that unfold at the base of the stairs includes a spacious and highly reconfigurable main living lounge, a dry kitchen cum bar seating that tilts to form an interesting spatial dialogue with the living, and the open formal dining beyond with its dramatic yet subdued pink metallic woven fibre backdrop and a satin rose gold display cellar.
Due to national security regulations, one of the two duplexes that was amalgamated to form this super-sized apartment had all its bedroom views obscured. In a bid to turn this constraint into a desirable product that will become a well sought after commodity in the local market, the highly view-compromising unit is mostly converted into a singular “Master Villa” with double volume space for the main bedroom area, extensive outdoor living, independent walk-in wardrobes for His and Hers, a spa bath, and a convertible study/games guest-room. Understanding the cultural background of the client, we deliberately extracted a piece of their favourite moment from their hometown into the new space, influencing the palette of the home. Designing this abstract moment calls for a sensitive curation of materials, delicate calibration of lighting elements, and elaborate orchestration of soft furnishings.
The way the living areas are designed is specific to the family’s lifestyle, where young children have lots of open spaces to play while adults can sit and chitchat with watchful eyes not far away always. Whenever the need arises for larger parties, the interconnected spaces serve the function very well and can be adapted to serve many groups concurrently. The experience of guests visiting the home is designed to intrigue and excite, yet the softness of the space helps one to feel at home and grounded almost instantly. It was not an easy feat to redesign this home layout from 2 sets of duplexes that were not originally considered for use as a single home. The new layout was an ingenious way to solve a tricky issue for the developers as well as to create the right spatial flow for a young family migrating over.
This project necessitated major changes in the layout of the home. However, we kept unavoidable waste to a minimum, and where possible, we retained the existing elements of the space and reused the existing inventory of feature lights from the developer. For example, in order to retain the original unit’s main timber feature wall, we had to find the right craftsmen to recreate the additional panelling required in the same details and refinish the old and new panelling with a fresh coat of spray paint. For the dining table that we custom built to fit the space, we decided to salvage the leftover slab of rare stone, Patagonia Glace, from another project to be used as the table top. Concurrently, we collaborated with a local laminate supplier to repurpose offcuts for another project.