A tropical Singapore home shaped by a design constraint

Asked how the children have taken to the new home, the wife said: “They love it. My son and daughter swim often with their friends.” While she does not cook often, the generous dry kitchen counter facing the courtyard becomes, during gatherings, a station with a view for a hired private chef. On one occasion, she said, an Italian chef who had trained as an architect remarked that the house was well designed.

It is not only human guests who have made themselves at home here. With greenery woven throughout the house, the husband said, birds have begun nesting on the property, a Finlayson’s squirrel has become a resident visitor and a bat comes by at night to sip water from the pool. “We don’t mind at all, as bats are very auspicious in Chinese culture,” he said. For Arango, this is “tropical living to the max”.