Chiltern House by WOW Architects | Warner Wong Design discretely unites indoors and outdoors
Chiltern House is striking new family home on Singapore's Chiltern Drive that has been truly tailored to its owners' needs by WOW Architects | Warner Wong Design.
Carved out of concrete and featuring the rough texture and imprints of its timber formwork, the house's textures were also chosen to act as a permanent reminder of its conception, process and creation. Created as a 'single monolithic concrete structure' that discretely unites indoors and outdoors, the six-bedroom house features clever openings, designed to preserve the owners' privacy from the street.
Take an interactive tour of Chiltern house
Each space in this four-level house was designed according to its individual user's requirements to enable all family members to enjoy both common areas and their own privacy. 'The spaces […] were crafted like a garment, woven around the needs and desires of its inhabitants,' say the architects. At the same time, the clever internal design and views across different levels help the family members remain aware of each other's movements within the house.
Special attention was paid to the way all the areas communicate with nature and the building's surroundings; a lush garden that remains in view from different parts of the house, can be seen even from its deepest rooms. Continuing this theme, the open-plan living and dining areas are sandwiched by the garden on one side and a swimming pool on the other.
The nearby kitchen also features an elongated window towards the greenery and was designed to be flexible to different uses, accommodating small and larger groups of people with equal ease. A similar large horizontal opening is featured in the master bedroom, on the house's top floor, linking the indoors with the suburban cityscape beyond.
Contrasting the structure's raw concrete with its warm, modern interiors and a leafy garden and the pool's shimmering water element, Chiltern House tells the story of a design that was created to respond to its owners' needs, its tropical environment and suburban setting.
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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
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