This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 10, 2018 - December 16, 2018
Crazy Rich Asians created a huge buzz globally with its touching and meaningful storyline and, more importantly, filming locations. One of them was Be-landa House, which was used as the residence of Eleanor Young, one of the main characters of the Hollywood movie.
The beautiful house was designed by 29 Design Consultancy Sdn Bhd. Founder and principal architect Amanda Teh says the firm mainly focuses on designing private residences.
One of its many other projects is the Pavilion House in Penang. It was designed for a typical Asian family with three generations living under the same roof, says Teh. When her client bought the land, it came with a 1-storey house. But as more space and privacy were needed, the client decided to demolish the existing structure and build a 2-storey house.
Teh says the layout was planned in such a way that each generation has a private area of its own on the big piece of land. The entire house is divided into three “pavilions”.
From the porch, there are two entrances — a public entrance on the left and the family entrance on the right.
The public entrance leads to the first 1½-storey pavilion. It has three sides with an opening on each side that leads to the garden, and there is a formal dining room next to it. “This is where they have parties and entertain people. It is a flat land. The openings allow people to come in and go out freely,” says Teh. Attached to the pavilion is a dry kitchen, while the wet kitchen is behind it.
The centrepiece of the house is the swimming pool area, and separating the adult and children pools is a passageway that also serves as a bridge to the family entrance. There is also a generous pool deck in front of this entrance.
On the right side of the family entrance is the second pavilion housing the suite of the client’s parents. The first and mezzanine floors house the master suite, where the client’s bedroom and study area are located respectively. There is a spiral staircase in the bedroom connecting it to the mezzanine floor.
Located between the two pavilions is the third pavilion, which houses the common areas on the ground floor and the children’s bedroom and play area on the first and mezzanine floors respectively. Attached to the children’s bedroom is a study area and there is a spiral staircase to the mezzanine floor.
The pavilions are connected to each other through corridors and hallways.
Teh says designing a private house is different from planning other properties because some
clients attach great importance to Chinese geomancy (feng shui). “The placement of the furniture and fittings has to be predetermined before we finalise the layout because the clients might say, ‘We can’t have this opening there’, or ‘The bed cannot be here’. The façade would be affected. So, the interior design has to be done together with the façade design.”
Teh says 29 Design Consultancy is quite consistent in the colour palette and materials used in its projects. “We want something that is timeless. Be-landa House, for example, was designed in 2007 and it still stands out today and that’s what we want to do. So, we go for a natural colour palette.”
A women-run firm
Teh started 29 Design Consultancy with fellow architect Stephanie Maignan in 2005. “We met when we were working at the Veritas Design Group. We had never worked together [on a project]. Instead, we were hang-out buddies. Before we turned 30, we decided to venture out and set up our own firm — hence the name, 29 Design,” Teh explains.
It was tough in the beginning as it was difficult to get clients to trust women architects, she says. “It was quite hard, especially because we were women in a masculine industry. We worked three times harder in our first couple of projects because we wanted to learn and know everything. Over the years, we have gained experience and our confidence level has increased.”
At first, Teh and Maignan were involved in interior designing and decorating jobs. After Teh obtained the architecture practice firm licence a couple of years later, they began taking on larger-scale architectural projects.
“Architecture firms can go into many types of projects but we were interested in houses. We received recommendations from our existing clients and many have not been one-time clients,” she says.
About a year ago, Maignan left 29 Design and Teh now runs the firm on her own. “We have always been a very small architectural practice. Keeping ourselves a design-based company, with a constant eye on weaving improvements into our work, has been the key element that has kept us busy in the past decade,” says Teh.
Another principle that she has stuck to is that her relationship with her clients is strictly professional and purely work-based. “We don’t do entertaining. I don’t think I have even had a meal with any of my clients. We draw a very clear line. There are no funny deals and it’s good because it benefits us. After a few years, they realise that women-run firms don’t do things like that.”
For young women architects who are considering setting up their own firm, Teh encourages them to do so as they would be able to enjoy the flexibility, decision-making and time management that it affords.
“There are many things you can do as an architect. Some people do furniture design, others do shop-front or window design. It’s great because they have their small office and they can do their own thing but it takes courage to do so.
“It takes a while to make sure the firm is complete, as in you have the staff, network, system, computer, software … all these you can slowly work in. It can be done and it is feasible for women to do this in this line. I hope to see more women venturing out and setting up their own firm.”
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