An 89-sq-m apartment in one of Singapore’s oldest housing estates has been transformed into a light-filled home with an open layout, natural materials and carefully chosen design classics.
Tiong Bahru was the gentrified darling of the early 2010s. Hip stores like indie bookstore BooksActually moved in alongside traditional mom-and-pop businesses, while Tiong Bahru Bakery began its croissant empire in a ground-floor space. The now-defunct Australian-style cafe Forty Hands made avocado toast and flat whites de rigueur among the millennial brunch crowd. Expats and creatives were drawn to the neighbourhood’s Art Deco-inflected architecture, which stood out from the more conventional HDB blocks nearby.
It was a far cry from the 1920s, when the area was an unsanitary squatter settlement dotted with swamps, burial grounds and farms. The Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), the predecessor to the Housing and Development Board (HDB), subsequently cleared the land and began developing what would become Singapore’s first public housing estate.
Yet beyond its trendy cafes and boutiques, Tiong Bahru’s low-rise blocks, intimate proportions and distinctive details like portholes and curved staircases continue to draw residents looking…