House Tour: This multi-generational home in the Thomson area has a brutalist red brick silo at its centre

A tall tower used to store grain, the Silo is the inspiration for OMG Atelier’s semi-detached home in Singapore’s Thomson area for a multi-generational family. 

The idea of a receptacle containing nourishment is translated into tenets of fresh air, comfort, natural light, and restful moments for the inhabitants. Similarly, memories formed on this land and in this house are “stored” for the future.

On the land was a modest two-storey family home belonging to the client, who grew up here. Together with his parents and elder brother, they decided to rebuild so that all three could live together alongside their individual family units. 

Having worked with interior design firm Habit on his past two residences, the younger son requested that they come on board this project, and Habit invited OMG Atelier to collaborate on the architecture. 

“We aligned early on in choosing not to maximise the GFA (Gross Floor Area) at the expense of liveability. The shared goal was to avoid a bulky, commercial-looking structure and instead, create a home with soul — one that feels warm, intentional, and grounded in how the family lives,” says Habit’s design principal, Denise Chng.

Letting nature in

Lee articulates that the owners did not want to live in a “shopping mall” where the external environment is shut out. “They are very nature-loving and often joked about monkeys stealing food from their kitchen and monitor lizards trespassing on their former house; they did not mind that at all,” she says. 

Adds the client’s father, “We have fond memories of the old house’s open spaces, many plants, and the garden. We wanted to keep the greenery by having planters on every floor in the new house.”  

The semi-detached house’s front comprises an intriguing composition of parts. Lee divided the massing into three distinct volumes. The first is a tall, white box with asymmetrical cut-outs of assorted variety — slim windows with planters, slivers of glass-bricked apertures, pixelated balcony screens — that play with scale and rhythm. 

A second block runs toward the rear. The vertical circulation core joins both blocks, expressed as a terracotta brick-wrapped “silo” and a glass-block elevation fronting the staircase. 

This house attempts to subvert many norms in conventional house design, one of which is the front metal mesh gate and gabion fence, which sit low at less than a metre. Instead, a row of low shrubs and a Caribbean trumpet tree serve as a softer boundary element — ideal for chats with neighbours.  

Another subversion was to place the kitchen at the front of the street and the living room behind. This is a creative solution to the plot’s topography, which slopes a metre from front to back, with the reverse layout allowing the living and dining areas to segue with the landscaping at the house’s side and rear, joined by a cosy patio for outdoor dining. 

Several functions but one home

Many details unfurl when one explores the home. The car porch slopes inward to the rusty red lift shaft, where an opening in the canopy sends a wash of sunlight down to a small garden. Smallish fern trees, stepping stones, and a water pot with a kusari-tori (rain chain) form an enchanting mise en scène of nature, texture, and craft. 

During my visit, fish swimming in the pot filled with rainwater is a delightful example of how the family members have made this house their own. 

The house embodies a generous spirit in this way, where spaces suggest rather than dictate use. The interior is punctuated with double volumes, screened walls, and planters in every room to harmonise interior and exterior, space, and exuberance. Storage and display, while functional, gel with the “bones of the architecture”. 

Explains Li Yanling, Habit’s project principal, “In a home built for multiple generations, where spaces need to serve different functions yet feel unified, the joinery was conceived not simply as cabinetry, but as a form of quiet architecture — shaping space, movement, and rhythm.” 

She adds that the joinery plays a dual role, sometimes as thresholds between communal and private areas, or as semi-porous spatial dividers that allow light and breeze to pass. 

The furnishing was also thoroughly considered. For example, in the living area, two curvaceous sofas in dialogue — one winding to enclose the area and the other, pebble-like to anchor the corner — create an inviting space. 

With the grandparents’ bedroom situated right at the front of the second storey, Lee provided privacy by placing the largest opening to the side facing the entrance garden. A balcony extends for closer interaction with the elements. 

The structure of this dwelling is new but contains traces of its former shell, such as the number plate from the previous house, an artefact on the lift wall, and an old marble dining table framed like an art piece at the car porch. The Silo House is, at its heart, a poignant continuum of life.