Living Large

IT'S THE PERENNIAL design challenge: How do you make a small or long and narrow home look bigger than it really is? The conundrum that is big enough to spawn entire TV series devoted to solving space issues usually tosses up solutions that run along two lines: (1) use several strategically placed full length mirrors for the illusion of size; or (2) knock down as many walls as possible to create that extra space.

For a two-storey ground floor apartment, Lawrence Puah decided on the latter as one of his design strategies. The director of design studio akiHAUS was tasked with retrofitting the long and narrow ground floor unit on East Coast Road, where his client Lam Wee Chee and his flight attendant wife live with their seven-year-old twin boys.

Mr Lam, group chief executive of a lighting company, was attracted to the apartment's exterior red brick walls and the large patio leading to the condominium's open space. The drawback, though, was that inside, it was dark and felt claustrophobic.