From the street, this home is a study in controlled disclosure. Dark vertical fins veil the upper floor, deep overhangs temper the western sun, and a broad cantilever draws the entrance beneath a façade that offers the city very little of the life within. Cross the threshold, however, and the composition opens towards water, garden, and sky, its rooms arranged around a planted courtyard and pool that give this substantial Singapore home the ease of a resort, although thankfully none of the lobby furniture. ArMo Design Studio’s tropical family home is an inspired example of architecture where privacy and relaxation blend seamlessly.
Completed in October 2025 within the leafy Coronation Road enclave, the 870-square-metre residence in Singapore was designed both inside and out by ArMo Design Studio. Co-founders Maria Arango, Diego Molina, and Goh Chong Chia converted a build-free easement across the centre of the 634.40-square-metre site into the separation between two volumes, allowing a planning restriction to establish the house’s internal order. The heavier front block absorbs the street, the afternoon sun, and the service spaces, while the rear block dissolves into water and planting.
The main living, dining, and kitchen spaces unfold as a continuous sequence beside the courtyard, where full-height sliding panels draw the terrace, water, and tropical planting into daily life. Across the pool, a lighter pavilion opens towards the garden, its sunken lounge tucked into the water’s edge beneath a slim roof and permeable screens. The result is wonderfully civilised: enough shelter to survive Singapore’s climate with dignity, yet sufficiently open for cross-ventilation, filtered daylight, and the small rituals around which a family home earns its keep.
The owners, an Australian husband and Singaporean wife with two teenage children, wanted the sense of openness they had enjoyed in their previous home, along with an informal place that could feel removed from the world outside, so ArMo choreographed its response through gradual revelation. The guarded façade gives little away; inside, a tall entrance portal, informed by Carlo Scarpa’s treatment of the Brion Tomb, frames the arrival before the view expands towards the pool and pavilion. A curved stair wall and custom Dune chandelier by Moss Objects add sculptural presence to the foyer without competing with the greenery beyond.
The materials are restrained, although hardly anonymous, with teak ceilings, veneer cabinetry, copper-finished steel, travertine floors, plaster, marble, and dark metal cladding tempering the building’s substantial mass, while a hand-laid rubble wall recalls the house previously occupying the site. In the living room, the generous Albert sofa by Vincent Van Duysen for Molteni&C supports the home’s preference for gathering over display; nearby, a Tisoffio pendant by Viabizzuno hangs above a custom Fiske dining table, and the dry kitchen centres on a Taj Mahal marble island.
Upstairs, bedrooms face planted terraces and roof gardens rather than neighbouring houses, while the pavilion’s study can be opened or screened according to mood. By morning, its lower level accommodates coffee and the newspaper beside the pool; by evening, family and friends drift between water, garden, and living room. At dusk, the pavilion assumes its intended role as a gathering place held between garden and house, sheltered from the city without ever feeling shut away from it.
