Twelve units of two-and-a-half-storey linked terrace houses sit within an elongated-shaped 1-acre land in Puchong, a sub-urban area of Selangor.To the north and west of the site is the fringe of the metropolitan area with small villages, vast landscapes and lakes.The external design of the houses is articulated in two variations, expressing different built heights, colours, and finished textures to break away from the norm of extreme linearity in Malaysian terrace housing design.Each unit is built on a 6.4m x 33m plot size with 264 sqm of floor area for family living.
The front part of the house is 2-storey and has a half-storey at the lower ground towards the rear.Residents driving home can park on the front porch or slope down to park at the rear terrace area.Entering through the front porch, residents are greeted with a landscaped front courtyard.Vertical green planter boxes screen their cars from the interior at the front; a big tree helps give shade to the car at the rear terrace.
Passing the main door, internal spaces are planned around a central triple-volumed courtyard void space naturally lit with landscaping.Sunlight filtering through the rooftop skylight penetrating 3 storeys deep into the house; the architect took reference from Malaysian heritage shophouse design as inspiration.As a strategy to blend nature into architecture, owners are encouraged to plant trees in the central courtyard.Living hall, dining, and kitchen areas flanking the central courtyard can enjoy the greenery amidst a bright, naturally lit high-volume environment.This is a design response to address the issue of dark interiors in a standard Malaysian terrace house plan.
Walking up the precast concrete cantilevered main staircase to the first floor, one can see the big window for the master and common bedroom opening into the central courtyard.The windows encourage visual connection and interaction between different floors’ users.The external façade of the bedroom has a ‘monsoon window’, each with horizontal top-hung panels that allow air exchange while preventing water from getting in during the monsoon rains.
The breeze from the front courtyard crosses the house interior and exits through the kitchen or bedroom rear windows.Hot air within the house rises and ventilates out through the porous ventilation blocks at the high roof level above the central courtyard.These natural ventilation strategies for a tropical living are often neglected in the country’s mass housing developments.The window on the east-west facing façade is shaded with operable louvres to increase the level of privacy and protect against tropical heat while allowing individually-adjustable visibility of the exterior environment.
On the first floor; walking up a spiral staircase passing the external door, the resident will reach a spacious flat roof area created as an active rooftop terrace with an uninterrupted 180-degree view of the western landscape, villages and the lake.The overall design response specifically to the Malaysian suburban housing context.It addresses the critical issues underlying how local housing interacts with the tropical climate, local social realities, and its relationship with past architectural heritage.
