Wooi's Wow Factor
New Straits Times, Saturday February 19 , 2005 by Yvonne Yoong
Step into Lok Wooi's residence, and your perception of architecture and space planning will never be the same again. Forget fancy paint on walls and ceilings, tinted glass and other artificial attachments. These are merely superficial features for him.
"No false ceiling," quips Wooi of Wooi Architect, recalling the rude shock he experienced in his earlier years when he arrived back from Australia to discover plaster ceilings were all rage here. "I believe in air and natural light they are more important to the spaces than facilities," he maintains, stressing the need for a complete paradigm shift.
Attributing his architectural design sense to a spiritual search of sorts, he also sees his residence as a fruitful attempt at recapturing the essence of his childhood experiences growing up in the rustic kampung of Pendang in Tanah Merah, Kedah.
"The Malay house is fabulous," he says. "It exemplifies traditional wisdom with its efficient cross-ventilation and raised structure.
"In fact, I find it is actually the most natural way to live comfortably in a humid tropical country such as ours."
Taking a cue from the kampung house with its slanted roof, Wooi's home in Shah Alam, Selangor, makes its presence felt with a prominent sweeping umbrella roof configured out of zinc-titanium. The flat roof, for him, is not practical because of our climate.
Wooi also chose to flex his creative muscles by working predominantly with timber, bricks, glass and concrete, and exhibiting them in their natural state. Strips of timber "placed vertically in place of walls" for instance, allow air to flow in and around the 7,000sq ft house with ease.
"There's beauty in concrete," he says, shaking the very foundation of conventional belief that exposed concrete spells unfinished business. Fair-faced bricks are also a central theme of the house as they form the load-bearing walls and, although cut to suit, are exposed in their natural form with wider-than-normal mortar joints to accommodate different dimensions.
The language of simplicity is very much alive and at work here, juxtaposed against a thoroughly detailed structure. Fluid expressions of grace and style find their form in the curved walls that seem to intermingle with the spatial experience to create a seamless whole. So too the divinely detailed light timber stairs with its intricate 2-inch by 1-inch timber strips, leading to the first floor that accommodates the family room, master bedroom, children's rooms and a common study.
Next
Back to Press Articles Index
