Hitotema.home: How our Japanese ideas came to life

258

Japandi
HDB (BTO)
~700 sqft
2 br
Couple Living

よ！ We're back with a post to talking about how expectations turned into reality, along with side-by-side comparisons of our ID's initial renders and the actual space we live in now. Hitotema.home is a Modern Japanese (not japandi) cozy 3 room BTO, designed to bring traditional elements of Japanese houses into the modern era. (Also, hoping you guys recognise that the renders are on the left)
It all started here. The melding of a genkan, engawa and shoji door into a typical flat entrance. One thing's for sure, they look almost identical, save for the big rock which we haven't found yet, but trust me, we're still searching for it. Just from this picture alone, we'd like to share our thoughts on our designer. Hock Hoon, they're not just IDs, but they have a strong identity and skillset in carpentry too. The most impressive thing about their render was how detailed, well planned and meticulously designed it was, based on our requirements and hopes.
The fact is, because of their confidence in woodwork, you'll notice that apart from furniture, or some changes we may have made along the way, everything from the initial idea was carried out exactly as planned. Here's another view of the entryway from atop the engawa. Yes, we don't have the plant, but the render doesn't show of the dramatic shadows cast through the shoji door either, and we think it's all lovely.
The initial plan for the table is shown here. Nothing much has changed, apart from the choice of zashiki instead of just cushions. In the render, you can also see the display shelves (tokonoma), contrasted by the photo where the sliding door can also be used to hide the tokonoma away if needed.
And here's the kitchen. Differences in exhaust hood, but yeah. Our kitchen was jointly built by the design team, myself and ANOX studio, so despite all those parts coming together I'd say we're really happy it all came together.
Just a quick shot of the "drive-thru" window, ahaha. It's purpose is to connect the bedroom to the rest of the house, but at the same time, to allow natural light to flow into the corridor area from the kitchen to the rooms.
And lastly, the bedroom! The render has a fair amount of distortion, and I don't own a camera with a wide enough lens to grab a similar shot. But either way, it's all there! Catch you guys in the next post!