WHEN ARCHITECT LIM KOON PARK named his firm Park + Associates in 1999, people wondered who his associates were. But in reality, he was very much a one man show. “Park Architects just didn't have a nice ring to it,” Lim laughs.

He has since lived up to the name, with a team of over 40. “The objective was always to grow.”

But he doesn’t just consider his colleagues associates – his clients and builders are too.

“Not only must the client and architect have the same objective, but there has to be a good brief and the right builder to have a memorable project,” says Lim.

An off-form concrete wall forms the facade of the ME house with an origami-inspired structure wrapping around the car porch.  PHOTO: KHOO GUO JIE

He cites the construction of a family home at Bukit Timah for the Lee family as an example. The husband owns a creative firm while his wife is a managing partner at an investment firm. Nicknamed the ME house after the initials of the owners’ names, the GCB is not your typical house. It has a long off-form concrete facade, and a round timber pavilion for the main entrance.

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Visitors get a peek of the home from the circular arrival foyer. PHOTO: KHOO GUO JIE​​​​​​

ME house won a merit award at the Architectural Design Awards in 2021, handed out by the Singapore Institute of Architects. The Lees approached Lim after seeing a home he had designed for the wife’s siblings a few years earlier.

“For that project, our family shortlisted several architects and we felt most comfortable with Park,” says the missus. “And when it came to our home, we didn’t consider anyone else.”

Lim Koon Park, founder and principal architect, with Christina Thean, director. PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN

While it has been two years since the completion of the project, the couple still often text Lim and director Christina Thean to chat. While the architect can be thought of as the middleman between the client and builder, it wasn’t the case for this home.

“Working on this project felt like a group of good friends coming together to build a home,” says Thean, who has been with the firm for over 20 years.

Many of the staff at Park + Associates have been with Lim for more than 10 years. “‘I'm a nice guy,” quips the soft-spoken Lim, on why his staff stay with him. “I run the office in the way that I wish to work. The staff have room to grow and they are well taken care of.”

Despite not having a significant number of projects in Bangkok, Lim set up an office there, so that his Thai colleagues who wanted to return home could still work for the firm remotely.

Thean agrees. This is the first firm she joined after graduation and has stayed for the last 21 years.

“Here, when you work on any project, you feel like you are making a difference to the firm,” says Thean. “It also helps that we do projects of different genres, so there is always the opportunity to bring a fresh approach.”

The double volume space gives grandness to the home. PHOTO: KHOO GUO JIE

Lim didn’t plan on being an architect. The idea of becoming one came to him when he scored especially well for a General Paper essay which required him to write about how he would decorate his ideal home. Lim had been living on his own since 13, and tapped his own experience for the essay.

A few decades since he started his career, he still gets excited being able to approach design from different angles, and being able to inspire his younger colleagues.

The two work on projects together, with Thean describing herself as the more airy fairy one while Lim is the voice of reason. “We like to test the strength of the design, rather than its function,” says Lim.

The two may sometimes have opposing ideas but when it comes to design philosophies they are on the same page.

For Lim, a space is made up of walls, floor and ceiling. “But there needs to be a good bone structure to the space, otherwise you'll need a lot of decorating,” he says. “A well-designed space is one where the volume is not typical, and is more than just a rectangular box.”

Using the ME house as example, there are features that are unconventional such as the origami-like form that wraps around the car-porch. This is also present inside the house in the way the staircase is designed. The clients have a love for Japanese culture, hence the origami inspiration.

The U-shaped house is simple in material and colour palette. “We kept it simple so that what’s important to the owners – their toy collection – is the main highlight, says Thean.

The U-shaped house where the common areas and bedrooms overlook into the courtyard. PHOTO: KHOO GUO JIE

The husband is a big collector of toys including Kaws and Be@rbrick which are displayed around the home.

The material palette is kept simple to provide a neutral background for the owner’s toy collection. PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN

The houses by Park + Associates are different but not for the sake of being so. “Apart from meeting the brief, there are also environmental and site considerations and we also want to push the design envelope,” says Thean.

For the ME house, the living and family entertainment rooms are on the first floor. The dry and wet kitchens and the dining room are in the basement.

Staircase leading to the upper floors that is naturally lit by the skylight above. PHOTO: KHOO GUO JIE

The master bedroom and bedrooms for the two children are on the second floor, while the attic is a workshop space. The owner fell in love with the site after seeing a 30-year-old rain tree in the compound. It had been planted by the previous owner.

Part of the brief required keeping the tree and the architects added a touch of fun with a treehouse and slide next to it.

To bring the greenery into the lower floor, the architects designed a terraced garden leading to the basement. One of the biggest challenges was the construction of the circular timber pavilion at the entrance. Built using a series of vertical timber strips, the builder had initially said it was not possible to be a round one. “But somehow he managed to make it happen,” says Thean. “That’s why you need a good builder who can turn design ideas into reality.”

The attic is where the family come together to do arts and crafts. PHOTO: KHOO GUO JIE

The couple appreciate that their home was built largely without problems, having heard home building horror stories from friends. “It is not good to have problems when building,” says the missus. Lim adds, “I don’t like scolding contractors so we all work together to the best that we can.”

The firm is currently working on some houses in Singapore as well as in Bangkok and Sicily. They recently designed Taiga Dining, a fine-dining sushi-ya and a showroom for building material supplier Hafary, which are new genres for them.

The story of how they landed a project in Sicily is an interesting one. The client had come across the firm’s website and fell in love with the houses they did, and emailed Lim to design his home.

“We thought it might be a scam,” Lim recalls. But they eventually took on the job after visiting the site which overlooks a cliff. The design of the house was done remotely because of pandemic travel restrictions, but Lim and Thean will be flying to Italy to see its completion in May. Lim says he has been lucky that the firm gets to design in new sectors thanks to clients’ recommendations. Thean jokes, “We are really terrible at marketing our capabilities.”

Despite that, clients go to them because they push the design envelope.

“We are able to give clients something more than they desire that they didn’t imagine possible,” says Thean. “It is an added bonus if all parties come off the project having built a friendship.”

Like with most architectural firms, they too have been affected by the pandemic. Projects are taking longer to complete but now they no longer have to convince not to maximise the land site but to consider including outdoor spaces into the design.

“What’s good is there is now more appreciation for design from the clients,” says Lim.

He is setting his sights internationally next. “Singaporean architects are known for their work ethics, and as a country, we have a strong architectural brand that can add value to the world market,” says Lim.