"Long House"
The house sits on a fairly big plot of suburban land that is rectangular, flat and featureless. Aamer’s design
divided the site into four parallel strips and introduced sculptural volumes and landscaped elements into the
strips to create spatial interests and focal points. On the northernmost strip sits the most sculptural element
of the house – a linear elevated volume with an elliptical-shaped profile that was cladded with timber louvers
on the sides. Aamer said that he was inspired by the Iban Longhouse in Sarawak, especially its long
verandah that serves as a communal space. In this reinterpretation, the linear strip houses the three
bedrooms of the clients’ young children, the master bedroom and a family room. The children’s bedrooms
have folding doors that allowed the bedrooms to be opened and integrated with the long verandah space
that also acts as a passageway to the family room and the master bedroom. Protected from the elements by
timber louvers lining the sides of the elliptical-shaped profile, the verandah has built-in low timber platforms
so that it could be used as a common play area for the children. Below this sculptural element lined a row of
rooms that included the study, gymnasium, guest bedroom, dry kitchen and dining room. Next to these
rooms is a strip of spaces that they spill into. It includes a lawn, a double volume living room, a sunken
courtyard, the master bathroom and some service spaces.
The spaces in these two strips are not visible from the street entrance. They are screened by a stone feature
wall. What is visible instead is another sculptural volume – a seemingly “floating” concrete box that houses
the master study. Besides the structural gymnastics that enabled the concrete box to be supported on just
two points, what further accentuates the “floating” effect is a driveway that leads to the basement garage
below the concrete box as it creates a bigger volume of empty space below the concrete box. The concrete
box and driveway below it forms the southernmost strip. Between this strip and the stone feature wall
screening the two aforementioned strips is a strip of water that is divided into two parts by a sculptural
staircase and an elevator core in the middle. To the east of the staircase and the elevator is a swimming pool
that runs parallel to the lawn and the “long house”. To the west is a strip of alternating stepping stones and
old railway sleepers above a reflecting pool that sits between the stone feature wall and the “floating”
concrete box that defines the formal entry to the house.
View Original