Halcyon House by Ming Architects
Halcyon House is a family house in Singapore by Ming Architects, conceived as a bright retreat for daily life and generous entertaining. A raised double-height living room, feature staircase, and car porch lounge anchor the home, while carefully chosen materials keep the interiors mellow and calm. The result is a layered composition where light, shadow, and volume shape how the family and their friends gather and move.
Morning light filters through the tall façade window, tracing bands of shadow across the double-height living room and the pale timber stair beyond. From the pebbled courtyard at ground level to the circulatory galleries above, the house reveals itself in shifting layers of brightness and quiet shade.
Halcyon House is a house in Singapore by Ming Architects, planned for a growing family who also welcome friends for gatherings and parties. The project orients daily life around a raised, double-volume living room and its companion feature staircase, using carefully tuned materials to catch, soften, and reflect light. Every major room leans on that palette, from the courtyard and car porch lounge to the skylit master bathroom.
At the heart of the composition, the living room sits on the second storey as the home’s main collective volume. Its height reads immediately, with a soaring window on the façade and a constellation of hanging lights that glow after dusk. Circulatory zones overlook this room from above, turning the void into a visual anchor for movement and conversation. The elevated position keeps the family’s gatherings airy yet connected to the rest of the house.
Shaping Light On The Façade
Across the towering window, a rhythm of regular beams manages sunlight, cutting it into measured bands that shift through the day. These elements temper glare, directing a softer radiance onto the furniture and floor while still keeping the living room bright. When privacy is needed, translucent blinds descend in a clean layer that conceals the interior without shutting out daylight. After sunset, the same structural rhythm frames the hanging lights, turning the glazing into a warm, patterned lantern for the street.
Stair, Courtyard, And Car Porch
Beside the main living volume, a sculpted feature staircase links the upper circulatory routes to the ground-level courtyard. At its base, the stair arrives in a bed of pebbles, where stone and gravel set a grounded, peaceful mood. Nearby, the car porch is pulled deep into the building line, forming a generous display zone for vehicles that reads as part gallery, part entrance court. A lounge with an adjoining wine cellar looks into this porch, creating a more intimate entertainment setting that complements the open living room above.
Skylights And Vertical Glow
Above the stair, a skylight pours daylight down onto white railings and light wood treads, so each step seems to catch its own band of brightness. The open risers allow that light to slip further into the interior, keeping the vertical circulation clear and legible. A second skylight crowns the master bathroom, positioned directly above the bathtub for an almost lofted pool of illumination. Here, light grazes a serrated stone wall, throwing crisp, radiant patterns that shift gently from morning to evening.
Mellow Materials Inside
Throughout the living areas, Ming Architects work with a calm palette so light and shadow can take the lead. Neutral tones wrap the double-height room, allowing the patterned shadows from the façade beams to become the main visual texture by day. When night falls, the hanging lights wash those same surfaces with a warmer glow, giving the room a second, softer character. The repeated use of white railings, light timber, stone, and pebbles ties stair, courtyard, lounge, and bathroom into one quiet, continuous narrative.
In daily use, that narrative returns each time someone climbs the stair or pauses by the courtyard gravel. Sun cuts through beams, washes over timber, and settles onto stone. The family’s routines fold into that choreography of light, giving Halcyon House a steady rhythm from dawn to evening.
Photography courtesy of Ming Architects
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