In Kim Yam Road, in the heart of Singapore, Park+Associates designed its own offices in a renovated 1960s school building. The architects' intention was to create a building that would break with all the conventional ideas about what a workspace is like.
Kim Yam Road, Singapore is where Park+Associates built their new offices. What architect Lim Koon Park wanted to do was create a workspace that would be entirely free of rules and regulations, in reaction against the rigidity of conventional offices.
The answer to the architect's needs was a part of an abandoned school building from the 1960s, the internal structure of which contained a corridor, a library and a number of staff offices. The entire space was deconstructed, starting with a big central hall with a vaulted ceiling and no columns. Here there is a big wooden table for meetings, the walls are made of bare concrete and the vaulted ceilings are painted black and white; plenty of daylight floods in at one end of the room.
A loft provides access to the work area, a white space which is always flooded with natural light containing a number of workstations. A large area has been set up as a kitchen and lounge. The office's informality creates a welcoming, refined, home-like atmosphere, with parquet flooring and walls painted matt black.
The spaces in the office are often separated by strip windows which let plenty of light in, even between the rooms.
Park+Associates' principal achievement is to celebrate the intrinsic qualities of the existing space, which they themselves called "creative" and "capable of challenging conventions", giving it new form and colour and bringing it back to life.
Francesco Cibati
Year: 2014
Location: Singapore
Team: Lim Koon Park, Christina Thean, Tan Peng Geok
Photos: Edward Hendricks
http://www.parkassociates.com.sg/
