A Simple Headquarters Interior
Simple Headquarters Interior
Singapore
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Simple Headquarters was commissioned for a hundred-year-old automotive distributor rapidly transitioning from a petroleum-based car company to an electric one. Located in the early cityscape of equatorial Singapore, it incorporates a series of design and planning strategies to reflect a low-energy, passive design with spatial equity at the heart of the architecture. Created as a background building for a series of streetside showrooms, the design is bult to make the most of the dramatics of the equatorial context and its dense urban location.
Two veils screen the building. On is positioned on the exterior, and the other is located within the interior. A gradient of angled 300 mm aluminum fins on the exterior veil provides a sun-break on the north and west elevations, which minimizes the majority of the building’s solar heat gain . A second envelope contains awning windows, ventilation louvers, and fire access panels that undulate behind the exterior veil in unison. In addition, a two-story balcony is positioned behind the veil, allowing for access to natural ventilation and views of the cityscape beyond. The envelope’s porosity allows for six of the nine floors to be entirely naturally ventilated, with three floors containing electric and mechanical repair and maintenance facilities for automobiles.
A second veil surrounds a three-story interior atrium that serves as the primary social commons space for clients, buyers, suppliers, employees, and guests. A significant stair links level 7 to the rooftop thermally, and through circulation. The porosity of the interior veil allows for cool air from an automotive gallery to exhale into the atrium, creating a high-comfort space as the formal entry to the company. The atrium is illuminated by an enormous oculus that streams light into the dark center of the floor plate while providing a porthole to the changing sky above. The corporate workspaces set adjacent to the atrium are designed around ideas of workplace equity. The corporate workspaces are planned to integrate workshop staff and executive, white-collar staff mixing on the same floor and sharing the same amenities. The repair staff are electrical and software engineers for twenty-first-century electric cars, making the historical division of blue- and white-collar staff irrelevant.
Essential but straightforward values permeate the architecture: Access to views and daylight, passive design, and generously scaled, accessible spaces. With this architectural foundation, the company adapts a climate-conscious, forward-looking ethos, embracing its electric future within the urban equatorial context of Singapore.
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Erik L’Heureux (PhD) FAIA
Design Architect
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With Team Design Architects as Architect Qualified Professional / Architect of Record