A house and a gallery merge into a new building type.

This is a small building, with two programs—a house and an art gallery—squeezed into a very dense envelope, in the midst of Singapore’s red light district.

We attempted to balance this programmatic double-life through a play of two volumes. The lower contains a triple-height gallery and kitchen. Above is a second, rotated volume, which appears to be partially suspended below the ceiling of the first; this holds the bedrooms and private spaces. To emphasize the interplay of volumes, the building has been designed in a rather blank, abstract material language.

The Gallery House is sited in a typical Singaporean lot, between two very long party walls. In order to bring natural light deep into the interior, a series of small gardens are extracted from the facade and roofline. This creates a complex series of nested spaces, merging the interior with tropical landscape. Rooms are unexpectedly located and strangely formed, partially overlapping with others or sharing views of interior canyon spaces. The largest of these contains the main stair, which winds informally between rooms at front and back.

All images by Darren Soh/ Fullframephotos