Small Space, Big Ideas

William Chan of Spacedge Designs transformed this Singapore apartment to suit the owner’s minimalist lifestyle

The owner of this apartment in Singapore gave Spacedge Designs founder and chief designer William Chan complete freedom to design his home, which comprises a living/dining area, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, all in just under 50 square metres. 

‘I optimised the space in a way that made sense for the client and his lifestyle’, says Chan. The designer’s concept centred around reconfiguring the areas to express them as a series of structures with a unified design language. Chan explains that he designed the home as a ‘utopian space for a bachelor who loves the bare beauty of minimalist lines’. 

The apartment’s layout proved to be the biggest challenge, and Chan opted to remove unnecessary internal walls and doors in order to create a better flow and a fluid, open plan. For ease of maintenance and uniformity, wood laminate was used for the cabinetry, which conceals various functional furniture like a desk and a wardrobe, as well as appliances such as the fridge and washing machine. Continuing this uniformity, microcement flooring was applied throughout the apartment, including in the wet area of the bathroom (formerly the kitchen). 

One of Chan’s favourite elements in the apartment is the bomb shelter, which has become part of the common area now that its door remains fully open. ‘The shelters were built for wartime emergencies, but most people use them as storage rooms now. I turned it into a more meaningful space: a backlit display of the client’s collection of architecture models,’ Chan says.

Along with the cupboard interiors, minimal furniture and accessories bring pops of deep blue that punctuate the otherwise muted space. ‘The only other colour here was selected to make a statement’, Chan says. ‘The fluorescent orange ‘dot’ on the living room wall is a coin bank I designed as a feng shui element.’ Carefully selected by Chan for their strong visual value, graphic shapes and individual characters, all items in the home complement one another. 

‘I’ve always been keen on pushing boundaries to come up with design solutions that are artistic and unconventional’, the designer says. ‘I enjoy seeing things from different perspectives and my inspirations range from globalisation to architecture, furniture and everyday life.’

Text / Karine Monié
Images / VC
Styling / Yong Woei Na