Mission possible

PASCAL Leccia quips that he gave his designer Yann Follain, founding partner of WY-TO Architects, a "Mission Impossible" job when designing the Leccia family home two years ago. The brief to Mr Follain included creating seven bedrooms in the 3,100 sq ft townhouse, and a bigger dining and living space. That was just the easy bit.

The challenge was redesigning the space without even visiting it. "The previous owners had not moved out yet, and didn't want Yann and me coming into the house to take measurements,"says Mr Leccia, who works in the finance industry. In the end, Mr Follain designed the space based on the floor plans. "It was a good thing the appropriate government agencies had the blueprints to the townhouse," he says.

Then there was another challenge. The development located on Upper East Coast Road had very strict hours that the contractors had to follow. "The team had only about seven hours each day to work, and we could not go beyond six months," says Mr Follain. Towfiqua Hoque, Mr Leccia's wife, adds: "The house was still in a mess a month before the deadline. Even our kids were affected by this."