On a steep, forested slope in Bukit Tunku, the house is imagined as a sequence of stepped terraces cantilevered from the hill, each reaching a little further into the trees and the view.
The slope is not fought but followed. Rather than levelling the hill, the concept sets four long terraces into it, each anchored by a board-formed concrete wall and held out over the canopy on a slender cantilever. From the road, very little is visible: a low entrance court, a timber gate, the tops of trees. The drama is kept for the inside, revealed a level at a time as one descends.
The upper terraces belong to the life of receiving: a double-height library lined in walnut, a dining room that opens to the evening air, a terrace for conversations that run late. Below, the house grows quieter. The principal suite and a study sit closest to the forest, and at the lowest level an infinity pool reaches out over the treetops, its edge dissolving into the canopy and, far beyond, the lights of the city.
Teak screens slide across the long glass walls, filtering the western sun and letting the breeze pass through while keeping the rooms private from the valley. The concrete holds the cool of the night well into the day. Rain is part of the design, running down the terraces into planted channels and a stone cistern. Retreat, here, is not an absence of ambition but a place to set it down.
