How They Pulled It Off: a Faux Skylight and Fireplace in the Middle of a Duplex Apartment

Welcome to How They Pulled It Off, where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.

In Singapore, the vast majority of citizens live in high-rise apartments built by the government called Housing & Development Board (HBD) flats. So, as one can imagine, there are plenty of limitations to how you can renovate a public housing unit. When Alex Liu acquired his maisonette-style HBD flat—a maisonette is similar to a duplex in America—in the central-north region of Singapore with his wife and children, he and his brother Jay Liu, both co-founders of the interior architecture firm Right Angle Studio, knew they wanted to reconfigure the previous blockade layout. 

Inspired by airy and minimalist Japanese interiors, the brothers knocked down walls to help open up the space. Blonde wood paneling details were constructed. Indoor garden moments were planted. And instead of traditional paint, a cream-colored microcement was layered onto walls to offer more depth and texture. To get around HBD renovation rules, the brothers devised clever ways to manipulate or create an illusion of bespoke architecture by conceiving a few fake out areas. The nine-month-long renovation project includes an artificial skylight, an artificial courtyard, and an artificial fireplace.

"We couldn’t amend the original staircase so we created a casing that wraps over the base of the bottom steps to change the orientation of the landing," says Jay, who serves as the firm’s art director. In the dining area, lights were subtly placed in and below the shelving unit to provide extra warmth and ambience.

Once the brothers figured out how to reorient the staircase, they designed a built-in planter at the base of the steps to accommodate a small tree, "almost like a courtyard in the center of the house," says Jay. They settled on an artificial tree (for practical reasons), a Japanese Maple that sits in a pot of sturdy styrofoam with gravel layered on top.