Concrete Biophilia is a modest yet highly considered semi-detached home situated on a tight 302-square-meter site in eastern Singapore. Designed for a family of seven, the residence responds sensitively to its urban context—bounded by a busy road at the front and a five-story condominium at the rear—by addressing challenges of noise, privacy, and limited views through spatial ingenuity and biophilic strategies.

The architectural plan accommodates a typical family program, including four bedrooms (for the owners, children, a sibling, and grandparents), wet and dry kitchens, living and dining areas, a ground-floor lap pool, pool room, study, gym, playroom, and a helper’s room. Despite the density of spaces, the design maintains clarity and comfort, thanks to smart spatial layering and volume modulation.

Key to the design’s success is its use of double-height volumes in the living, dining, and pool areas. These generous vertical spaces foster openness and light, elevating the home’s spatial experience beyond its modest footprint. A 15-meter lap pool runs along the ground floor, its slender orientation made possible by a narrower front elevation—resulting in a subdued street-facing presence that aligns with planning regulations while prioritizing internal spatial quality.

Biophilic elements—such as the integration of greenery, light, and ventilation—play a critical role in enhancing the home’s liveability. Cascading concrete screens and planter boxes blur the boundary between interior and exterior, offering privacy, filtered light, and cooling airflow.
Through thoughtful programming, material selection, and environmental responsiveness, Concrete Biophilia redefines what’s possible on a constrained site. It delivers a quiet architectural statement—functional, elegant, and contextually aware—while offering a lush and layered living environment for contemporary family life.

Name: Concrete Biophyllia
Type: Proposed New Erection of a 3-Storey Semi Detached Dwelling House with Mezzanine, Attic & Swimming Pool
Location: Fidelio Street, Singapore
Site Area: 302 m2
Gross Floor Area: 545 m2
Status: Completed 2024
Architect: HYLA Architects
Principal Architect: Han Loke Kwang
Assistant Architects: Ploypradub Tienthong, Doreen Kerk
Main Contractor: Toh Kum Swee Pte Ltd
Structural Engineer: Thymn Pte Ltd
Landscape: Green Forest Landscape Pte Ltd
Interior: Graceful Decor
Photographer: Derek Swalwell

This house for a family of five sits on high ground with the rear having the view but facing west. The front faces east in a typical residential street. The design strategy was to place the living areas as well as the main bedrooms facing west to take advantage of the view. These spaces have deep overhangs or operable timber screens to protect it from the afternoon sun. In front, a 15 m high forecourt with a koi pond and feature tree acts as the buffer to the public street frontage. This space is covered, yet outdoors as there are openings on various sides. It is enclosed yet permanently and effectively ventilated. And it is private from the outside world, yet serves as the public space for the house where most of the circulation takes place.

At the rear the pool deck is sheltered by the mezzanine study above which then acts as the shield for the double volume living dining space. This study is in turn protected by a rotating timber screen with each blade made up of 8 pieces of timber. In order to span the entire width of the house the floor is suspended from the top floor, via a pair of deep beams which also serve as a planter for the master bedroom.

Throughout the house nature is introduced and emphasizes the duality of the spaces. Are you inside, or outside? Why not both?

Name: Outside In
Type: 2 storey semi-detached house with attic, mezzanine, basement and swimming pool
Location: Watten View, Singapore
Site Area: 450 m2
Gross Floor Area: 778 m2
Status: Completed 2022
Architect: HYLA Architects
Principal Architect: Mr Han Loke Kwang
Assistant Architects: Tran Thi Thu Trang, Constans Tan, Thomas Ong
Main Contractor: : Emma Groups Construction Pte Ltd
Structural Engineer: GCE Consulting Engineers
Landscape: Nyee Phoe Flower Garden Pte Ltd
Interior: Graceful Décor Pte Ltd
Photographer: Derek Swalwell

A small family of 3 had specific ‘feng shui’ requirements for the house, with 2 bedrooms on the 1st storey and the rest of the rooms housed in a tower. The detached house sits on a squarish site with area of 833 m2. With 2 of the 3 bedrooms located on the 1st storey, the challenge was how to separate the living areas from the private rooms. The solution was to invert the relationship, with the public spaces facing internal courtyards and the bedrooms facing the front garden. The house is cladded in face brick, with clay roof tiles and aluminium screens. Off form concrete is used in the living room walls, with precast concrete slabs for the courtyard floor. The overall palette is monochromatic and echoes Asian traditional architecture. The double volume living area faces two courtyards. The first courtyard is an entrance area with shelter for carparking as well as direct access to the service zone. The second more private court is enclosed by a single storey structure housing the bedrooms. The feeling is like that of a cloister – it is private and meditative.

Name: Cloister House
Type: 2 storey sdetached house with attic
Location: Vanda Crescent, Singapore
Site Area: 446 m2
Gross Floor Area: 519 m2
Status: Completed 2023
Architect: HYLA Architects
Principal Architects: Han Loke Kwang, Nicholas Gomes
Assistant Architects: Kimberly Ooi, Thomas Ong, Juperi
Main Contractor: : Emma Groups Construction Pte Ltd
Structural Engineer: GCE Consulting Engineers
Landscape: Nyee Phoe Flower Garden Pte Ltd
Interior: Graceful Décor Pte Ltd
Photographer: Derek Swalwell

Béton Intime (Concrete Intimacy) is a corner terrace house situated in West Coast Green, Singapore. Designed for a family of five — husband, wife, and a daughter & grandparents living abroad — the project occupies a compact 280 m² site. The brief called for the typical living spaces, dry and wet kitchens, three bedrooms, a flexible family-cum-guest room, and a studio for the wife’s floral artistry.
Responding to URA’s reverse setback guidelines, the house is enveloped in a continuous skin of off-form concrete, articulating a strong yet refined monolithic presence. The concrete is perforated in a screen that hovers above the swimming pool, creating layers of privacy, light, and texture while giving privacy in the dense landed housing fabric.

At its heart, a soaring double-volume living and dining space generates a sense of spatial grandeur uncommon in typical landed houses. Overlooking this void, a mezzanine family room orchestrates visual connectivity between the floors. A finely detailed timber staircase hovers dramatically above the pool, emphasizing fluidity between architecture, landscape, and movement.
The wife’s studio faces a contemplative side courtyard, bringing in filtered light and garden views to inspire creativity. Bedrooms are carefully composed for privacy and retreat, with flexible spaces supporting evolving family needs over time.

Béton Intime is a study in crafted contradictions — monumental yet intimate, robust yet sensuous. Through material honesty, spatial layering, and calibrated thresholds between openness and enclosure, the house offers a retreat that feels both elemental and profoundly human. Off-form concrete is celebrated not as brutalism, but as a medium for quiet poetry, sheltering the family in an architecture of strength, serenity, and timeless tactility. It redefines the potential of small landed plots, offering a nuanced response to density, climate, and contemporary domestic life

Project Type: Proposed New Erection of a 2-Storey Corner Terrace House with swimming pool, basement, mezzanine and attic
Project Location: 71 West Coast Green
Principal Architect: Han Loke Kwang
Project Team: Chan Da Quen, Jacelyn Pau, Coco Goh
Structural Engineer: GCE Consulting Engineers
Main Contractor: TS Ong Construction Pte Ltd
Landscape Contractor: Green Forest Landscape Pte Ltd
Interior Contractor: Kar Chuan Furniture & Renovation
Photographer: Derek Swalwell

This 2 storey brick structure has the archetypal form of a gable roofed house with an unusual twist – part of this form is actually an external courtyard that contains the swimming pool. This “room without a roof”, becomes the central focus of the house and blurs the distinction between inside and outside. It also gives the house privacy by controlling the views both from and to the house. The house is cladded in a dark grey and textured face brick, which is modulated in a variety of ways – either with brick sized openings or protruding bricks. On the second level is a precast concrete screen which is both for visual as well as sun screening. The last element in the external palette is a timber grid screen which gives a warm contrast to the brick and concrete. Internally, smaller pockets of green extend the inside-outside theme throughout. The staircase is a cantilevered structure with a triangular section facing a tiered landscape wall. The attic lounge has its own planting strip and is a continuation of the courtyard space vertically.

Name: Room Without Roof
Type: 2 storey detached house with attic, basement and swimming pool
Location: Siglap Plain, Singapore
Site Area: 558 m2
Gross Floor Area: 720 m2
Status: Completed 2017
Architect: HYLA Architects
Principal Architect: Mr Han Loke Kwang
Assistant Architects: Kompiya Rattanangkul, Goh Chiou Hwa, Thomas Ong
Main Contractor: : V-Tech Construction Pte Ltd
Structural Engineer: GNG Consultants Pte Ltd
Photographer: Derek Swalwell

Brief: The brief for this house for a family of 3 is quite conventional. Besides the usual living, dining, wet & dry kitchen, the client asked for 2 master suites, 2 study rooms and 2 spare bedrooms as well as a family area. A swimming pool, lift access and solar panels are also included.
Constraints: 1 Lily Avenue is a semi-detached house located in a busy commercial corner of Sixth Avenue. Around this site lies a popular coffee shop, a mixed-use development and condominium. The site also directly abuts Sixth Avenue with heavy traffic all day. The project offers a unique opportunity to re-examine house typology with a view to maximising privacy without sacrificing light and comfort. The house is designed as a retreat, and also a treat to the senses amidst the bustle of modern life.
Materials & Construction: The materials used for the house is kept to the minimum. The external façade is clad completely in grey facebricks, and the front elevation has stainless steel inserts which casts a playful pattern of shadows with the changing sun direction. This simple palette and private greenery provides a refreshing retreat for the occupants amidst a very busy section of Bukit Timah.
Design Features & Challenges: The design is a study in how to let in light and add greenery with the minimum means to the maximum spaces. 3 mini-courtyards are added, 2 along the party all and one at the side elevation. These mini-courtyard spaces ventilate all the upper level spaces including the bathrooms, wardrobes and staircase and corridors. At the ground floor, the double volume living and dining room look into the lush side garden which takes advantage of the row of road side trees long Sixth Avenue. The swimming pool enters the volume of the house and above it a carefully detailed brick screen lets in light.

Name: Re-Treat House
Type: 2 storey corner terrace house with attic, mezzanine and swimming pool
Location: Lily Avenue, Singapore
Site Area: 426 m2
Gross Floor Area: 466 m2
Status: Completed 2023
Architect: HYLA Architects
Principal Architect: Han Loke Kwang
Assistant Architects: Tiffany Ow, Tan Hui Yin, Doreen Kerk
Main Contractor: Toh Kum Swee Pte Ltd
Structural Engineer: Thymn Pte Ltd
Landscape: Green Forest Landscape Pte Ltd
Interior: Simplicity Space Pte Ltd
Photographer: Derek Swalwell

This detached house is located in a typical landed housing area. It is surrounded by other landed houses except there is a canal in adjoining the front road, thus offering greater privacy from the opposite row. The project offers a unique opportunity to re-examine house typology where typically the only good views are towards the front and on the higher levels.
The brief for this house for a family of 4 is quite conventional. Besides the usual living, dining, wet & dry kitchen, the client asked for master bedroom, 6 other bedrooms and study rooms as well as a home entertainment room. A swimming pool, lift access and solar panels are also included.
Unusually for a detached house, the living areas are elevated on to the 2nd level which offers a view across the canal. This double volume space with its timber ceiling and terrace swimming pool is like a grand room in the villa tradition. With a courtyard at the other end the space offers complete privacy and redefines how a landed house in Singapore can be planned. At the side, 2 ‘reverse’ bay windows with planters are a playful addition to the composition. The mater bedroom is on the attic floor and landscaping line the sides of the room and creep out of the square openings of the concrete façade.
The house plan is symmetrical with a covered but ventilated courtyard at the other end of the living space. Clad in travertine, the delicate timber stairs weaves around a glass lift core.
The materials used for the house is kept to the minimum. The external façade is clad completely in timber grain off form concrete. The double volume living areas is clearly expressed in the front façade with the timber cladded planters and deep overhang.

Name: Villa Urbano
Type: Proposed New Erection of a 2-Storey Envelope Control Detached Dwelling House with Basement, Mezzanine, Attic & Swimming Pool
Location: Coronation Walk, Singapore
Site Area: 533 m2
Gross Floor Area: 741 m2
Status: Completed 2023
Architect: HYLA Architects
Principal Architect: Han Loke Kwang, Nicholas Gomes
Assistant Architects: Tiffany Ow, Coco Goh
Main Contractor: : Holden Tiling & Construction Pte Ltd
Structural Engineer: Thymn Pte Ltd
Landscape: Nyee Phoe Flower Garden Pte Ltd
Interior: Graceful Décor Pte Ltd
Photographer: Derek Swalwell

Between space and form, light and landscape.
Set within a dense terrace housing row, Interstitial Terraces turns typological constraints into spatial opportunities. The house unfolds as a sequence of interstitial moments—courtyards, double volumes, sky terraces, and planted voids that dissolve the boundary between interior and exterior.
Two internal planted terraces bring daylight and natural ventilation deep into the plan, addressing a common challenge in intermediate terrace houses. Vertical shafts of light and layered greenery animate the interior, while double-volume spaces offer visual and spatial relief across floors.
Challenging the conventional layout, the living and dining areas are placed at the rear, in response to URA street block guidelines. Entry is through a 3.5-storey courtyard with a sculptural tree and reflecting pool, capped by a timber-and-glass pergola. Bridges span this courtyard, connecting the two volumes of the house.
The section steps down with the terrain—living spaces open onto sunken terraces, and an attic level frames long views to surrounding greenery, all within height and setback controls.
Interstitial Terraces is both code-compliant and deeply responsive to site and climate—a house defined by the richness of what lies between.

Name: Interstitial Terraces
Type: 3 storey intermediate terrace house with attic, mezzanine
Location: Clementi Crescent, Singapore
Site Area: 227.6 m2
Gross Floor Area: 484 m2
Status: Completed 2024
Architect: HYLA Architects
Principal Architect: Han Loke Kwang
Assistant Architects: Tan Hui Hin, Cherilyn Chia, Sabrina Chua
Main Contractor: TS Ong Construction Pte Ltd
Structural Engineer: Thymn Pte Ltd
Landscape: Green Forest Landscape Pte Ltd
Interior: Lines Craftwork Pte Ltd
Photographer: Derek Swalwell

On a very standard semi-detached plot size of 319 m2, the house re-examines the typology of a typical landed house in Singapore. A series of landscape terraces progresses from the front garden on the first level to the last floor. The gardens also wrap around the sides on the 2nd and 3rd levels to envelope the house in nature. Every floor has a ‘landed’ ambience and the plants help to screen the internal rooms as well as defining the edge of the spaces.

This semi-detached house is for a multi-generation family. The first level has the main living, dining and kitchen areas with rooms for the grandmother and 2 helpers. The second level has 2 kid’s bedrooms as well as a large family area for them. Above this is the master suite with an attached bathroom and gym. Finally on the attic is a generous study for 2.

The site faces a residential road as well as an incoming junction to one side. The land is also sloping with the side and rear setback area as well as the neighbours on higher ground. The area is zoned as a 3-storey mixed landed zone.

The houses uses face brickwork for the exterior walls and this continues internally in the party wall separating the house from its neighbour. This is where the circulation zone is and here the staircase and corridors are made in off form concrete. Alternating bands of concrete stiffeners give a musical rhythm to the soffit of this space. On the 3rd level the face brickwork also returns internally to form a landscape courtyard to the master bedroom and bathroom.

Name: Natural Progression
Type: 3 storey semi-detached house with attic
Location: Sennett Avenue, Singapore
Site Area: 319 m2
Gross Floor Area: 555 m2
Status: Completed 2023
Architect: HYLA Architects
Principal Architect: Han Loke Kwang
Assistant Architects: Tran Thi Thu Trang, Sabrina Chua, Teoh Feng Mei, Thomas Ong, Juperi
Main Contractor: : Toh Kum Swee Pte Ltd
Structural Engineer: GCE Consulting Engineers
Landscape: Green Forest Landscape Pte Ltd
Interior: Thung Interior
Photographer: Derek Swalwell

The house is for a family of four – husband and wife, their child, and an elderly parent. The house is situated in a noisy and busy commercial district, with a church at its rear. In this house we sought to address the issues related to climate and noise with passive design strategies and avoid active measures that might be energy consuming.

By introducing courtyards on every level and creating carefully calculated openings and skylights, the internal spaces are flushed with maximum natural light in the day, reducing the need for artificial lighting. Providing gaps between the rooms and party walls also allows the house to be naturally ventilated and reduces reliance on mechanical cooling.

As the house is fronting a busy road with tall commercial buildings, privacy and sound insulation were important to the homeowners. With that in mind, we have created solid façades and planned the spaces in what may initially come across as a counter-intuitive manner – locating the service areas to the front, and all major rooms towards the back.

The main courtyard features a triple volume space, with a concrete pergola that ensures maximum daylight with a glass skylight, so rain does not enter. There is also an intentionally unclear definition between the indoor and outdoor, which allows the homeowners to live with nature where spaces expand and flow seamlessly.

The house is equipped with solar panels as a means for being more eco-friendly. However, with the introduction of courtyards and openings on many faces of the building, the house is often windy, and the homeowners rely mostly on fans to keep them cool.

Name: Viridis Terra
Type: 3 storey intermediate terrace house with mezzanine and attic
Location: Novena Terrace, Singapore
Site Area: 426 m2
Gross Floor Area: 466 m2
Status: Completed 2023
Architect: HYLA Architects
Principal Architect: Han Loke Kwang
Assistant Architects: Tiffany Ow, Tan Tiong Li, Jacelyn Pau
Main Contractor: Toh Kum Swee Pte Ltd
Structural Engineer: GCE Consulting Engineers
Landscape: Green Forest Landscape Pte Ltd
Interior: Thung Interior Contractor
Photographer: Derek Swalwell