Hijauan House Kuala Lumpur

In Malaysia and in the South East Asian region, we are blessed with having sunshine perpetually throughout the year. This combined with the natural greenery and environment has given birth to some of the most interesting and beautiful homes I have had the pleasure to explore personally and even read about in books. From the serene designs of Balinese styled homes to the modern eclectic designs in up-market Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Singapore.

While some of the homes found in this region pale in sheer size to other internationally featured homes, they still stand on par with the best in the world and for a simple fact; the amount of time, creativity and money put in is significant in each instance. What I found pretty amazing is not a single tree was cut down during the renovation of this home. This home was designed by a local Malaysian company called twenty-nine design sdn bhd, a boutique architecture and design firm and i must say that for a small company I found their work featured here pretty interesting.

More often than not, people take the easy way out and start from scratch towards achieving their desired home but twenty-nine design took the challenge of working within constraints. It is after all easier to start afresh that to work within constraints to keep existing features of the old house which in this case happen to be a few aged tropical trees especially two 50 year old mango trees. That kind of explains why not much was done to the external of this home which seems to be very close to its original shape, with the exception of the new windows & doors, timber screens on the 1st floor and possibly the swimming pool.

It’s the internal of the home thats gotten a pretty massive makeover. The entire house has been relaid out to give the feeling of openness. From the pictures below, you’ll see that very little internal walls remain which is very unlike traditional compartmentalization of spaces.

Those who have been following us for sometime would know that i’m very much into raw finishing for homes. I personally think that it gives a more timeless look and at the same time is easier to maintain. The way the timber elements used against the white of the walls and the raw driveway flooring and walkway all seem to come together quite nicely in this home. The swimming pool adds a feeling of calmness to the rear of the home, water whether still or flowing seems to have that calming effect on the area around it.

This home may project a simpler facade in comparison to some other homes featured on Habitat-MY but it is no less a home that is equally welcoming and with the beauty of the tropical flora surrounding this house, given the opportunity i would be proud to call something like this home.