Free-flowing layout for family’s open-concept Sengkang East BTO flat

SINGAPORE – This five-room flat in Sengkang East Drive is the first home that social media executive Ashley Ho and assistant cameraman Daryl Nah bought as a couple.

Ms Ho, 39, and Mr Nah, 38, purchased the 1,216 sq ft Build-To-Order flat in 2017. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and permits for certain renovation works, they moved into the unit only in 2024 with their daughter, who is now three years old.

The upshot of the long wait was that the couple had plenty of time to select a style for their home. They eventually chose a hybrid Brutalist and minimalist aesthetic, hiring Mr Jax Ren and Mr Joshua Wee from local interior design firm Threehaus Works.

The assignment: incorporate raw, natural materials like cement and limewash, with a sense of subtle luxury; and a platform with a ramp for Mr Nah’s camera equipment, plus a dress-up area for Ms Ho.

The owners’ vision is evident upon entering the living area. An L-shaped sofa abuts a concrete half-wall surrounded by glass panels and sliding glass doors that separate the living and dining areas.

The television console is a simple concrete form with a cement finish, which complements the cement screed flooring and limewashed walls.  

A ramp in the living area enables Mr Nah to wheel his equipment trolley to the dining area’s platform and to his workspace – an extension of the living area’s television console. On a wall in that corner is a pegboard for tools.

Nearby is a large dining table, where a custom-made hanging lamp echoes the table’s rectangular form.

Ms Ho says: “The dining area acts like an indoor balcony where we can have steamboat and not worry about the fumes entering the living area when we close the glass doors.”

Guests, she adds, can enter and leave from either end of the space.

In the original layout, the common bathroom and service yard were accessed from the corridor leading to the bedrooms and the kitchen respectively, which is typical of most HDB flats.

However, the owners wanted separate ingress and egress points for the common bathroom so they could access the service yard without going through the kitchen.  

To achieve this, the wall between the common bathroom and service yard had to go. It took the couple some time to get the Housing Board’s permission to remove this wall, but they secured it in the end. 

The yard’s school canteen-inspired sink has two compartments: one for handwashing and the other for laundry. A full-length mirror reflects light, making the space feel bigger.

With the open-concept kitchen and the wall between the common bathroom and service yard removed, the household shelter is a standalone unit in the middle of the floor plan.

The designers wrapped the pantry around this “freestanding” structure, turning it into a node around which activities can take place.

The pantry, which has a seating nook with a stool, doubles as a workspace. The kitchen has a calming palette of blue cabinets, polished cement floors and limewashed walls.

By combining the existing master bedroom with the adjacent bedroom, the couple created a spacious master suite with a bed on a storage platform. The half-height concrete bedhead also serves as a divider between the bed and the study table behind. 

They also created a walk-in wardrobe, with two full-height closets on either side and a bay window settee in between.

In front of the master bathroom is a dedicated dressing area.

The master bathroom has large-format grey floor tiles and subway wall tiles. The centrepiece is a custom-made cast-concrete basin. 

The renovations took about 3½ months to complete and cost about $135,000.