Timur Designs

TIMUR DESIGNS is an architecture consultancy firm established in 1991 by Yong Ai Loon with the aim of providing personal and direct services to the clients. In 1995, Chan Wai Kin joined the firm as a partner. In October 1996, TIMUR INTERIORS PTE LTD was set up to provide interior design services because we believe that good architecture is often the result of the integration of several levels, from the macro scale of urban planning to the detailing of interior finishes. TIMUR DESIGNS was registered as a Limited Liability Partnership in March 2008. TIMUR is the Malay word for East. Timur, the eastern part of the world, has its unique forms of culture and lifestyle notwithstanding the globalisation that pervades all large cities. In Timur, customs and traditions dictate traditional building forms. We choose to look towards Timur, the East, for directions and cues to our form of tropical architecture. The Tropical Asian House The fundamental essence of the contemporary Tropical Asian House traces its origins to the traditional and vernacular tropical house. Traditional tropical houses, be it a Malay, Thai or Bali house, is a home that is designed with a deep understanding of the climate and environment. These vernacular buildings recognise the need to shelter the users from the intense sun and the torrential tropical downpours, to control the glare from open skies and to ensure there is adequate natural vegetation in the surroundings to cool down the micro-climate. The stylistic expressions of the different houses may be different, but at its core, it is the same tropical Asian house. To truly understand the tropical house, one must venture beyond the superficial. Timeless Tropical The traditional tropical house plays a big role in our perception of homes and subsequently to our understanding of living in the tropics. Tropical living usually occurs in the in-between spaces i.e. the spaces between the outdoors and indoors where there is sufficient shelter from the harsh climate and sufficient openness to relate to the outdoors. We usually find these spaces are more lived-in compared to the purely internal spaces.