Exploring weathering as a design language.

The Stain House was an early design exploration for a private client in Singapore. Tired of the established tropes of “tropical modernism,” the owner of a sloping site in Bukit Timah wanted to explore other ways that the local climate could be expressed in form. As Singaporean buildings so often appear to battle the natural effects of a hot and humid climate—opting either for impervious materials or for a constant regime of re-painting—we proposed a house that would embrace the ubiquitous stains on our architecture as a new design language. The structure was designed to incorporate a series of panels, overhangs, and integrated “stain sources” (metals and plant waste, in particular) that would produce different patterns on the facades over time. Initially, the project would appear as a classic white-modern triumphalism, but over time begin to blend into its surrounding trees and shrubs.