LA Design Studio · 321 Bukit Timah Road, Singapore
Lim Thong and Grace of LA Design Studio unlock a double-volume apartment at Perfect Ten with a loft that hovers, stairs that dissolve, and a design philosophy where every element earns its place by doing more than one thing.
The double-volume ceiling is both gift and obligation. Its generosity of space is self-evident — what you do with it is the real question, and the one that separates architects from decorators. In this apartment at 321 Bukit Timah Road, Lim Thong and Grace of LA Design Studio answered that question with a philosophy they call purposeful architecture: every intervention must serve at minimum two functions, and no element may simply exist for visual effect.
The starting point was the volume itself. Rather than accepting the double-height space as a given — a condition to be furnished around — they read it as an invitation to reconfigure the vertical relationship of the apartment entirely. The loft study, positioned above the pantry, was their answer: a new plane of occupation that overlooks both the living area below and the panoramic Bukit Timah views beyond, without claiming the visual weight of a conventional mezzanine.
The double-volume living area in full — travertine stairs that appear to float, a loft study above the pantry, and a bonsai landscape below the staircase that transforms leftover space into a moment of calm.
One of the most considered decisions in this apartment is how it begins. Rather than allowing the full drama of the double-volume interior to announce itself immediately at the entrance, Lim Thong and Grace choreographed the arrival sequence with care. Bronze-tinted glass defines the transition between the foyer and the loft above, preserving the foyer's generous ceiling height while filtering natural light and offering controlled glimpses into the living space beyond. The full volume reveals itself only as you step through — a gradual disclosure that heightens the impact of what follows.
It is a decision that understands something important about architecture: that experience unfolds in time, and that a home encountered all at once is a home that has given away everything before you've had a chance to feel it. The Floating Equilibrium withholds just enough, at precisely the right moment, to make the reveal genuinely felt.
"Rather than adding more elements, we focused on ensuring every element contributes more."
Lim Thong & Grace, LA Design Studio
The floating travertine stairs — open treads that allow light and views to pass through, avoiding the visual barrier of a conventional enclosed staircase. The loft study above creates a new relationship between the interior and the panoramic views beyond.
The loft required structural support. A column was unavoidable. In a less considered intervention, this column would have been clad, obscured, designed around — a problem to be managed. Lim Thong and Grace made a different choice: they acknowledged it, and then they put it to work.
Clad in metallic laminate consistent with the home's material palette, the column was repurposed as the primary support for the floating study desk — eliminating the need for conventional table legs and creating a piece of built furniture whose structural logic is legible and elegant. The desk appears to grow from the column. The column appears to have always intended to be a desk. It is the kind of integration that only becomes possible when the designer refuses to treat structure and finish as separate problems.
The floating travertine stairs carry a similar logic. Their open-tread construction allows natural light to filter through and views to remain uninterrupted — avoiding the visual barrier that a conventional enclosed staircase would impose on the double-volume space. As a sculptural centrepiece they are undeniable; as a spatial device they are even more impressive, giving the impression that the staircase weighs almost nothing against the volume it traverses.
The living area from the loft study — the composition shifts with every viewpoint, revealing a different balance of volume, material, and light. The bonsai landscape softens the space below the stairs.
The clients of this project are, by their own description, enthusiastic. They travel widely and return from each trip inspired — by a hotel lobby, a material they had not encountered before, a stone pattern that seemed to belong in their home. Throughout the renovation, new inspirations arrived regularly, each requiring the design team to evaluate its place in the whole without disrupting it.
Lim Thong and Grace describe their response to this as the practice of thoughtful restraint. The clients had a particular appreciation for expressive stone patterns and were naturally drawn to marble throughout the process. Rather than incorporating every variety they admired, the team curated a restrained selection — ensuring each stone complemented the spaces around it and contributed to a cohesive material language rather than competing for attention. Not every marble made it to the final design. The ones that did are all the more powerful for what was left out.
The material palette that resulted is warm neutral in foundation, with travertine sintered stone used extensively across key architectural features to establish consistency and provide the durability that everyday living demands. Metallic inlays and carefully composed material junctions introduce intentional transitions between finishes — adding depth and refinement beyond simply placing materials side by side. Fabric wallpaper, sintered stone, and carefully integrated mirror detailing in the private quarters create a softer expression of the home's quiet luxury.
The dining area and loft study — two faces of the same architectural philosophy. Purposeful, layered, and always in conversation with the panoramic views beyond.
One of the tests of a home built around a dramatic double-volume space is whether the private rooms can hold their own against it. In lesser designs, the bedrooms feel like afterthoughts — serviceable but uninspired, carrying none of the energy that animates the social spaces. Here, that failure is avoided.
The master bedroom and secondary rooms carry the same material discipline as the public areas — fabric wallpaper, sintered stone, metallic inlays — but in a softer register appropriate to spaces for rest. The lighting is lower, the surfaces warmer, the proportions more intimate. The home does not shift aesthetic languages between floors. It modulates. And that modulation, handled with the same care as every other junction in the apartment, is what gives The Floating Equilibrium its coherence as a work of residential architecture.
The private quarters — the same material language, in a softer key. Warmth without excess; refinement without coldness.
What the designers of this apartment have ultimately achieved is a home that changes as you move through it — not in style or material language, but in the way it presents itself to you. Viewed from the entrance, from the living area, from the loft study above: each position reveals a different composition, a different balance of solid and void, a different relationship between the interior and the panoramic views beyond. It is a home that continually unfolds. And that quality — of a space that keeps revealing itself — is what both its creators and its inhabitants regard as the truest measure of its success.