LILY AVENUE HOUSE

Set within the tight constraints of a compact inter-terrace plot, the project explores how spatial generosity and environmental quality can coexist within a highly efficient footprint. The central challenge lay in accommodating the required number of bedrooms while preserving natural light, ventilation and a sense of openness throughout the house.

Responding to the site’s 12-metre height restriction, the design adopts a split-level strategy in which the rear portion of the house rises to four levels while the front remains at three. This mezzanine approach allows additional rooms to be inserted without fully occupying the floor plate, creating opportunities for voids and air wells to penetrate deep into the interior. The result is a layered spatial experience that maximises usable area while maintaining visual and climatic permeability.

The principal living spaces — including the living, dining and family areas — are conceived with generous ceiling heights to enhance spatial openness and daylight. More compact functions such as the kitchen and children’s bedrooms are consolidated towards the rear of the house. Rather than positioning the courtyard centrally, the design shifts it to the side, enabling a continuous living–dining–kitchen sequence and a fully permeable ground floor plan that encourages cross ventilation.

The courtyard also becomes an extension of the circulation system. A lightweight perforated metal staircase rises through this space, connecting to the attic master suite while allowing light and air to filter through its structure. At the upper levels, the second-storey family room forms the social heart of the home, conceived as the primary gathering space around which all bedrooms are organised. Short flights of stairs connect each room to this communal core, reinforcing familial interaction and visual connectivity.

Protected by aluminium screening, the family room filters harsh tropical sunlight while maintaining privacy and ventilation. Beyond, it opens onto a roof terrace above the car porch set up with lush landscaping for views and privacy screening from the public road below.