small projects

lightwell house

rowhouse renovation.

The lightwell house is a project
of steady evolution on a prewar
rowhouse in Kuala Lumpur. It
also happens to be where the
design work and processes of
smallprojects takes place.

Formalised by a series of linked
garden rooms that lead up to its
main entrance of a brick-floored
dining room, the house is much
less of a study in spatial terms
than it is a study of thresholds.
The house first took form with a
varied palette of gravel, grass,
bougainvillea, concrete, brick,
steel and glass, being gradually
filled with morning light, surface
wiring, squirrels and trees.

Above all, the house is the site
for the testing of ideas, a place
where the age of time, growth
and decay is measured on and
with the manmade - a crash test
dummy for the study of change.