You might be familiar with 3D-printed furniture and home decor popping up on your feed, but this semi-detached home in Bukit Timah takes it to a new level.
Designed by Park + Associates, it’s Singapore’s first 3D-printed home, built for the firm’s founder and principal architect, Lim Koon Park, and his family. From its unique architecture to eco-conscious touches, we take a closer look at how the home combines style and functionality to great effect.
Award-winning design for a 6,130sqft semi-detached house
Image credit: @ces_innovfab
Named QR3D, Singapore’s first 3D-printed home is a 6,130sqft semi-detached house with 4 floors and 7 bedrooms. The home was previously built in a Neoclassical style like its neighbours, but now stands out with its exposed concrete design. Completed in 2024, it has already gained recognition for its innovative design, including an Honourable Mention at the World Architecture Festival 2024.
Brick-free architecture with a 6m-tall oculus
Image credit: @parkassociates
Right above the entryway and dining area, the centrepiece of the home is the oculus, which stands at 6m tall. It lets natural light into the house, drawing your attention once you step in. As the sun moves across the sky over the course of the day, the atmosphere in the home shifts from the bright rays of day to a soft glow that diffuses through the space.
Image credit: Park + Associates
Beyond its aesthetic appeal, the oculus also serves to ventilate the home. Hot air is funnelled through vents at the base of the structure and extracted through a fan at the roof, helping to manage heat levels and keep the home cool.
Image credit: Architizer
You might have noticed that curved walls flow through the house, contrasting with the sharp, futuristic look of the home’s exterior, and adding an elegant touch to the inside. What’s interesting is that 97% of the home’s walls were printed using 3D concrete printing technology, without any bricks used.
Unlike traditional building methods, this technology allows complex structures like these curved walls to be easily constructed with less waste produced, for a more eco-conscious construction.
Image credit: STUDIOWONGS
The 3D-printed concrete gives the walls a distinct layered texture that is visible throughout the home━even in its boundary walls. Left unpainted, they’ve created a minimalist look that showcases the unique technology.
A hot air funnel system that cools the staircase
Image credit: STUDIOWONGS
The curved walls surrounding the oculus are the only painted surface in the entire home, done in an earthy ochre that adds warmth to the concrete interior. These painted walls wrap around the main staircase, connecting all 4 levels of the home with a pop of colour. The sunlight bouncing off the funnel also reflects natural light deeper into the home, illuminating harder-to-reach corners.
Image credit: STUDIOWONGS
According to the architectural firm, the staircase is cooled by waste cool air from the heat-pump water heater━an especially helpful perk on hotter days that also aligns with the home’s eco-conscious design features.
Sleek, raw minimalist bedrooms & kitchen
Image credit: STUDIOWONGS
The concrete walls are left raw and unpainted in the bedrooms for a raw minimalist aesthetic that matches the home’s facade. Eschewing the use of curtains, the windows are fitted with blinds of light wood that echo the ochre of the funnel.
Image credit: Architizer
The monochromatic grey aesthetic of the home extends into the kitchen, with sleek fixtures that complement the home’s cool tones. It’s accented with warm wood tones that balance out the coolness of the space, with vertically stacked tiles in varying depths that add visual depth and interest, as opposed to a flat wall.
Environmentally conscious resort-worthy bathrooms
Image credit: STUDIOWONGS
A standout feature in one of the bathrooms is the use of marble offcuts, sourced from a local supplier to reduce waste, for the floor. Not only is every piece of marble unique, but they also fit together to form a design that’s one-of-a-kind, thanks to their irregular shapes━sharply contrasting against the uniform lines of the exposed 3D-printed walls.
The warm brown slabs amidst the black are highlighted by the warm lights, lending a more homey, inviting touch to the bathroom. .
Singapore’s first 3D-printed home
We’re all familiar with 3D printing with plastic, but who would’ve thought that 3D printing would come to the medium of concrete to be used in the building of houses. This house is more than enough proof that 3D printing might be the future, and we’re more than excited to see how 3D printing continues to change the reno landscape in Singapore.
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Cover image adapted from: @parkassociates
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