Verandah House by Mark 12 Architects
Verandah House stands in Singapore as a compact house shaped by Mark 12 Architects around light, greenery, and a demanding urban edge. The three-level home layers courtyards, balconies, and gardens to temper the presence of a neighboring MRT station while drawing nature into daily routines. Eclectic interiors pair oriental references with contemporary lines, turning each level into a backdrop for art, gathering, and quiet work.
Concrete planes tilt toward the sky as the house meets the street, their slanted edges cutting views in deliberate directions and catching bands of equatorial light. Behind them, a quiet courtyard with raked gravel and a single bonsai tree holds the center of the home.
Verandah House is a compact house in Singapore by Mark 12 Architects, planned for a family that moves between large gatherings and solitary work. The architects focus on how a tight urban site beside a three‑storey MRT exit can still breathe, sharpening the massing, courtyards, and gardens to edit views and pull in greenery. Every level works with the tropical climate, exchanging sealed volumes for shaded verandahs, balconies, and planted edges.
Slanted Walls And Views
The most assertive move is a run of gable-end walls, each slanted to skew sightlines away from the stark MRT structure. Off-form concrete gives these planes a raw texture that absorbs light during the day and reads as calm silhouettes at dusk. Openings cut between the walls frame borrowed landscape, trimming out the undesirable backdrop while keeping distant greenery in view. Rooms sit within this folded envelope, so each one registers the angled geometry as a physical filter between city and interior.
Courtyards In The Tropics
At the heart of the house, a minimalist courtyard rests quietly with fine gravel underfoot and a sculptural bonsai set almost like a small artwork. This void helps interior rooms breathe in Singapore’s humid climate, letting air and light move across levels instead of relying on a sealed shell. Upper storeys gain a sequence of gardens, balconies, and interstitial outdoor rooms that stitch circulation to planting. These planted edges soften the hard concrete structure and keep daily routines in contact with sun, breeze, and foliage.
Gardens As Interior Companions
Landscape design leans on recognisable species, from bonsai forms to willows that drape gently into view. Planting threads through verandahs and courts so greenery arrives not as a distant outlook but as a near companion to living and study. Even on a constrained plot, layered gardens carve out moments of retreat for reading, reflection, or a break between work tasks. Sightline studies during planning tie these planted pockets to the wider context, setting up long views that push beyond the boundary walls.
Eclectic Rooms For Daily Life
Inside, the architecture leaves enough clarity for an eclectic interior world shaped around the client’s art, colorful sculptures, and vintage furniture. Contemporary surfaces sit beside oriental references so the collection reads as lived-in rather than staged, with each piece anchoring a corner for conversation or quiet study. A flexible layout lets larger family gatherings spill across living, dining, and verandah zones, then contract to smaller pockets suited to focused work. Planning on such a compact site grows from steady dialogue between architect and client, adjusting rooms until everyday routines sit comfortably within the house.
As the day cools, light falls gently across the slanted gables and into the central courtyard, catching the bonsai’s branches against pale gravel. The house holds its line against the MRT wall while staying open to air, rain, and planted edges. In this balance between concrete shelter and porous garden rooms, Verandah House finds a calm way to live with the tropics.
Photography courtesy of Mark 12 Architects
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