The Pool Shophouse, designed by FARM in collaboration with KD Architects, is part of a set of architectural experiments - The Lorong 24A Shophouse Series - in which seven Singapore architecture offices were involved.
The intent was to recover the previously existing 'shophouse' - East Asian vernacular architectural style – by exploring its spatial possibilities and interpreting the 'new' not as a 'rear extension' but as 'insertion'.
The monolithic pool on the first floor emphasizes the linearity of the space guiding the eye from the front to the rear.
This idea of linearity is also extended to the private areas on the upper floors. The project tests the continuity of the space through a series of stairs that loop through the shophouse. At the centre of this 'loop' there is a skylight that “marks the vital interface...and bathes this narrow linear space with resplendent sunlight, and visually connects different parts of the house.”
Through these spatial and formal gestures dialogue between the old and the new is constantly questioned and new discoveries are revealed through variations in geometry, height, volume and material.
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