This Kuala Lumpur house has bedrooms with corners that slide open, an indoor tree and voids amongst the floors to make the interior feel much more like an outdoor space .
Ittka House was created by Kuala Lumpur-based architect Fabian Tan for a couple in their 30s, and replaces a a lot more traditional terraced home on the internet site.
“They asked for a modern day house, but had no other expectations, and left me to my very own gadgets,” Tan told Dezeen. “The only thing they specified was to have a lot more bedrooms to accommodate regular visits from relatives.”
Temperatures in the Malaysian capital typical from 22 degrees Celsius (71.six degrees Fahrenheit) to 32 degrees Celsius (89.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and downpours are regular, so Tan designed the two-storey terraced home with internal spaces that really feel far more like outside spaces.
On the ground floor, two of the four bedrooms function sliding panels so that the corners can be opened up to a central courtyard-design area exactly where a little tree is planted.
“I wished it to really feel as although you are outdoors when you come out of the bedroom,” mentioned Tan. “Malaysian weather can get extremely hot and humid, so individuals rarely go outside to the backyard in the daytime.”
Relevant story: A tree grows up by means of voids in Hamada Design’s Glass + Wood building
Tan used related sliding aspects in a prior task, which contains a movable timber display all around a circular living room so it can be transformed into a sheltered outside terrace.
“Architecture for me is not fixed in nature,” he said. “I constantly see movement, not only in the architectural parts, but also in the light, the stress between the components, and the human activities.”
The upper floor has a kitchen, dining room and residing space, which are organized around the ground floor’s double-height corridor, so the owners can seem down to the bedrooms beneath and carry on conversations in between the two floors.
“In a normal house, the residing area would be on the ground floor, and a staircase would lead to a corridor upstairs connecting the bedrooms. When I reversed this and place the bedrooms downstairs, I was in a position to make the corridor double-height, so that it connects with the residing spaces over,” stated Tan.
Rooflights and little gardens have been added around the periphery of the property to carry a sense of the outdoors within. A roof garden outdoors the living room partially screens the home from the gaze of passersby, and the corridor on the ground floor prospects to a 1.eight-metre-square terrace at the back.
“The intention of this terrace was to expand the room at the rear of the property,” mentioned Tan.
The rear terrace is accessed by a 6-metre-tall door with separate panels that can be opened or closed to control the volume light and ventilation coming within. The sliding bedroom doors also feature panels at the best that can be opened to provide ventilation.
White terrazzo flooring was utilized downstairs to match the white walls, and merbau wood – a dark-coloured timber that grows in the region – was employed for the floors upstairs, as well as the sliding doors on the bedrooms.
“Basic material finishes had been chosen with restraint, so as to not accentuate any element of the whole,” stated Tan. “The intention was to generate a calm room defined purely by volume, depth and light.”
Inward-searching styles and gardens are specifically related for urban homes in tropical climates, in which the lack of room and harsh heat make outside living tough. Other examples featured on Dezeen incorporate a narrow house in Ho Chi Minh City built close to a curved lightwell and a Tokyo townhouse with a stack of gardens on its balconies.
Ittka House was created with a concrete frame and brick infill – a typical development approach in Malaysia, in accordance to Tan – and was completed in a 12 months.
Photography is by Eiffel Chong.
Ground floor prepare 
Very first floor strategy
