Characterised by rock formations that mimic water and other natural features, Karesansui, literally “dry landscape” or stone gardens, are the epitome of Japanese gardening. Also known as “Zen gardens” outside of Japan, they have a rich history dating back...

It may not always be practical or affordable to rebuild the cabinets in a kitchen or bathroom. Refacing them might be the best solution. But what does refacing involve? As with most construction projects, the answer depends on lots of details.

Singapore: Inside Out is a travelling experiential showcase organised by the Singapore Tourism Board. Its inaugural show was in 2015, travelling from Beijing to London and New York before returning to Singapore. This year it showed in Tokyo in August, and...

A feature wall – also known as accent wall – is, technically, a wall that’s differentiated from the other walls in a room or area by its colour, texture, material treatment and, sometimes, function.

Whether you are laying out a living room for your first apartment or planning one for your new custom home, understanding the scale of furniture and its relationship to the room can help you create a comfortable and functional space. The first thing to keep in mind is that you want the proportions of...

Interior design student Simon Tan of Ngee Ann Polytechnic bested fellow design students from his school, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), Raffles College of Higher Education and Temasek Polytechnic to win the Young Designer Award 2017. He won $2,000 and a trophy as...

Taking a shower without soaking the entire bathroom floor comes down to the ever-important curb. Understanding how to build a shower curb and what products to use can get complicated. But getting the curb right makes all the difference for a shower – and might save you thousands of dollars down the road.
A

...

The Young Designer Award is a competition held annually for future interior designers in Singapore. Students from design colleges such as Raffles College of Higher Education, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore Institute of Technology and...

Renovating is a big financial and emotional investment. It can also be a big investment of your time if you want to be closely involved in the decision-making. Knowing what to expect before the project gets started will help you better prepare for the process. Here are 10 questions you should...

Bedside tables: How high? How low? How wide and how many? Should they match the bed? Should they match each other? Does it even have to be a table?
If these questions are on your mind, you’ve come to the right place. You’ve got questions, I’ve got answers. And even when I don’t have the answers,

...

Floors take a beating under the best of circumstances, but nowhere more so than in the kitchen – command central for cooking, homework, family gatherings and more. So it’s important to find a kitchen floor that can withstand constant traffic and make the style statement you want. Below we outline...

I work from home, and apparently I am in good, and growing, company. Up to 43 per cent of employed Americans work from home at least once a week, and this number is increasing. Do you know what we do for at least a part of our day? Get distracted by a noise: music blaring, a...

Design Excellence Awards (DEA) 2017, one of the region’s most anticipated interior design competitions, is calling for entries. Organised by the Interior Design Confederation Singapore (IDCS), the Awards recognise...

If the only thing distinguishing your living room from a bowling alley is the lack of red lines and pins, then you know how challenging it can be to decorate a long, narrow space.
How do you fill the room without seating people too far apart? How do you prevent normal-size furniture from looking

...

One of the nicest things my grandfather did for my grandmother was to have a home lift installed. They lived in a two-storey home with the main living area and bedrooms on the upper floor. My grandmother had become frail enough that getting upstairs from their main entrance on the ground level was a...

The bathroom is one of the only rooms in a multi-bodied household where we’re expected and encouraged to lock ourselves inside. With that kind of permission, it makes sense to use this private space as a luxurious sanctuary. Make the most of your haven by giving it the proper lighting.

...

From unfolding apartments to clever renovations to creative rentals, these 10 tiny kitchens show that their owners and designers haven’t just learned to deal with small spaces – they’ve embraced them. With solutions including cutting boards on drawers for extra counter space, affordable alternatives...

Overnight it seems Singapore’s air quality is once again affected by the haze, caused by the burning of regional forests in preparation for palm oil production. The haze period of 2015 was the longest on record. Just when we thought it wouldn’t happen this year,...

One of the most exciting things happening in Archifest this year is the Conversation, Women & Architecture: Conversations on the Discipline. Chaired by architecture professor Lillian Chee, who worked on the architectural film 03-Flats...

Luigi Rosselli of Luigi Rosselli Architects designs some of the most refined solutions for living. Here he shares his views on how to create a practical design brief and more.

A shophouse, according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), is “a prevalent building type in Singapore’s architectural and built heritage. Shophouses are also commonly found throughout the historic cities of South East Asia. They are narrow, small terraced houses, with a sheltered ‘five...

“Only primitives and barbarians lack knowledge of houses turned to face the winter sun.” This was written by the Greek playwright Aeschylus about 2,500 years ago, referring to the then-basic knowledge that a house should face the equator to gain heat from the low winter sun and shade from the high summer...

Whether you grew up with a staircase inside your house, or simply walking past the iconic exterior spirals of traditional shophouses, those steps must have held some fascination for you at some point in your life. Let these ones bring back that childhood awe for a few minutes.

A composite of the climate-sensitive indigenous architecture and the mock Tudor or Tudorbethan style – ‘Tropical Mock Tudor’ as author and architecture historian Julian Davison identifies in his book, Black and White: The Singapore House 1898-1941 – the black and white house can be traced as far...

“Modern farmhouse” and “urban farmhouse” are home design buzzwords that get bandied about a lot. Mentioning them often leads to comments from people who grew up in real farmhouses and aren’t buying the terms. But it’s a new style inspired by a classic vernacular style. Designers are taking elements from...

Brutalism, which thrived from the 1950s to the 1970s, was one of the most polarising architectural movements of modern times. Although the word suggests a lack of refinement, it was a complex and considered design school based on a utopian social vision and innovative approaches to materials. The courage...

This year might just be the right time to buy that dream dwelling. Online financial adviser Get.COM recently reported yet another dip in property prices, on the back of the slowing global economy and the government’s property...

Minimalism is all the rage now – and we don’t mean the modernist design movement. Rather, it’s all about living with a small footprint so that you consume less. But this lifestyle isn’t for everybody, as much as living in a sprawling home on Sentosa may not suit someone who likes the buzz of city living....

Grey has certainly undergone a radical transformation in the past few years – in terms of how we view it, that is. No longer is grey only associated with dreary days, serious attire and a gloomy outlook. This quiet neutral has shaken off its bad rap. Grey has not only replaced beige as being the ‘It’...

When you want to turn a one-bedroom, one-bathroom flat into a two-bedroom, two-bathroom home you need to call in the experts. That’s precisely what the owners of this mansion-block apartment did. They called in Jess Lavers of Jess Lavers Design, who totally revamped and rejigged the entire property in...