THE LIGHT CATCHER

Narrow and deep, shophouses have long challenged architects’ imagination and resources to open them up to light and air. But with just a simple device, Teh Joo Heng worked out an incredibly artful solution

Until a few years ago, an airwell, a skylight and a bank of windows were the only antidote to the poorly lit and ventilated interiors of a shophouse. Strict regulations covering their renovation were often thought to impinge on creative solutions to problems inherent to the structure. Those who work around the problem invariably impose a climate-controlled environment that effectively diminishes the shophouse’s true character and charms.

But continued interest in shophouses as alternative dwelling spaces, for practical and sentimental reasons, goads architects to find ways to harness light and air in a more personalised and spirited manner.

For Teh Joo Heng, principal and founder of the self-named architecture firm, one solution lies in a device that is so simple and ubiquitous it should not have escaped attention for so long. Called the light scoop, this architectural device draws in light, bounces it off several curved planes and distributes it to specific areas within the enveloping structure. The resulting illumination is nuanced and soft, changing character as the sun crosses the threshold. Its successful application in shophouses on No. 26 and No. 63 Emerald Hill anticipates progress in bringing natural light into challenging structures.

Besides the brief from the owners, Teh had to work with the Urban Redevelopment Authority regulations that prevented him from rebuilding the enveloping structure including the façade and the front half of the roof. He had freer rein in the back structure, often a later addition to the original, and has decided to demolish and rebuild it in one of the shophouses.

Inside No. 63 the system is articulated around the airwell like a swath of cloth unfurled from the ceiling all the way down to the first storey where it disappears into the walls. Another part of it looks like faceted cathedral doorways, perhaps a Gaudi study in white stucco. It draws the eyes towards the lofty ceiling whose summit has been opened up with a pitched skylight. As it spirals downwards, it passes through glass stairs and glass footbridge dragging the eyes towards the sparse space on the first storey where the line of sight goes beyond immediate physical boundaries.

“We like to describe it as a sculpture in space – because it does look like a piece of art in a room – but it is also a space in sculpture because it forms a structure that helps define and configure a room,” enthuses Teh. The design – including the revamp of an identical property on No. 65, which Teh revamped in a more traditional manner - bagged the 2005 URA Architectural Heritage Awards and an honourable mention at the SIA Architecture Design Awards in 2006.

Howard Wee, director of 7 Interior Architecture, stepped up to the challenge of designing the interiors with light and thoughtful touches that do not interfere with the stunning architecture.

Teh first installed a light scoop in the shophouse in No. 63 Emerald Hill. Its reappearance in No. 26 was in fact requested by its owner who, while shopping for ideas for his own shophouse, chanced upon it. In this second version, however, the device is more elaborate and enormous – a virtual organism that dominates the second storey where it pierces the roof into skylights, melds with the walls that enclose the private domain and swings all the way to the back where it terminates like an umbilicus on the rear wall. “We can replicate the idea behind the light scoop because it is based on the same principle, but it will always be artistically integrated each time – depending on the location and the requirements of the owner,” Teh explains.

One should be forgiven for thinking that the light scoop is architectural gimmickry. It is after all flamboyant, encompassing and painstakingly wrought. Built with timber and metal frames, its undulating surface is covered with wire mesh and layers of plaster. As it is meant to catch light, it is primed and coated with layers of white paint. “But this has very serious underlying principle,” Teh qualifies. As reflected sunlight moves across voluptuous, wavy surfaces and dim recesses, a dynamic effect is created. They create false surfaces, coating the stark white planes with texture. Instead of hitting just one a spot for several minutes, as it would through an ordinary fenestration, light through the scoop is distributed on several surfaces at once in uneven, dramatic intensities.

Its incorporation into the walls of the master bedroom in No. 26 is serendipitous. Although the owner asked for light and a general sense of openness throughout the domain, he also requested for a very private sanctum, and Teh obliges with a free-form brooding chamber that is enclosed by curved walls and sliding doors. With all openings closed the space turns pitch dark. The structure is evocative, recalling archetypes of primal condition from the collective unconscious. “Childhood fantasies of living in a cave, a nest or under a canopy of trees are powerful inspirations. They reside in our memory bank waiting to be retrieved and reused. In this particular room, we wanted to create an organic form – a womb or a cocoon – instead of the rectilinear,” explains Teh.

“We spend our days in places dominated by rectilinear structures, boxes, 45-degree angles – and there is nothing wrong with that. But I feel that we also crave for exciting spatial treatments and configurations; we search for a balance and this space is a response to that need,” he theorises.

The NUS and MIT alum claims his practice is driven by passion for design, particularly for the tropics. “But we prefer the fun, exciting and unusual route towards these,” he says. The firm is a laboratory that churns out myriad ideas, which partly explains its lack of one signature stroke to push it to the forefront of the market. “I’ve not thought about creating a signature look; maybe I should,” he says with a laugh. “But we’re more interested in design principles that come through our experimentation. And we want to grow with these principles, not to be limited by them.”