A sixth-generation Peranakan Baba, Chua came from a family with two ancestral homes in Malacca. One of them \u2013 where the family still lives \u2013 is now the Malacca Heritage Centre, showcasing a large collection of Peranakan furniture, antiques and household objects.<\/p>\n
In the Singapore house, the new attic storey houses a second family room, the master bedroom en-suite, a laundry room and a generous terrace decked with timber from the former house\u2019s pitched-roof rafters. The concrete grid contains these new spaces neatly, offering a clear reading of old and new \u2013 and a stoic backdrop to the garden\u2019s wild proliferation of plants.<\/p>\n
Besides integrating existing brick walls into the new layout, old window and door grilles were turned into flooring details and facade screens. Timber roof rafters were also repurposed into movable planters. \u201cThis plays on the notion of \u2018embodied memories\u2019 of reinterpreting and inhabiting the spaces, and helps reduce the house\u2019s carbon footprint,\u201d Seow said.<\/p>\n
Inside the house, the wife reused many of the old timber furniture, and introduced new ones that evoke memories of her family home in Malacca. \u201cWe try to reuse as much as possible,\u201d she said. \u201cThe family has this ethos of trying not to have too much waste,\u201d Seow added. Between the living room and kitchen is a timber swing door, known as a pintu pagar, commonly found in Peranakan shophouses and fitted with stained-glass infill. The wife said it was bought on Carousell from a homeowner. Together, these elements add charm and a tangible sense of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sixth-generation Peranakan Baba, Chua came from a family with two ancestral homes in Malacca. One of them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134,1194,227677,227676],"class_list":["post-436148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-homes","tag-luxury-homes","tag-residences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}