Of a few places one could safely retreat and relax in this pandemic time is one’s own abode. Many has since reconsidered and rethought their perspective of what an ideal home should be. Among many criteria of an ideal home expected by many homeowners today, having an inner garden or courtyard is on the top list. Completed in 2020, the Raffles House by eben is an ideal example of house with courtyards that promotes the dwellers’ well-being in this current situation.

In the recent years, e-commerce has been disrupting the operations of physical retail spaces, especially malls and department stores. But even if many people now prefer to shop through their handheld screens, the culture of hanging and dining out with others prevails. This makes way to new developments of retail spaces, such as a lifestyle mall that is smaller in size and provides more dining experience and entertainment. These smaller spaces that contain only more or less a dozen curated outlets have been gaining popularity and popped up in many cities.

Among the typical home office buildings in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, the office of Mantab Group stands quite prominently thanks to its gleaming gold-coloured façade. Hovering over the second floor of the building, the metallic façade wraps the front-facing part of the building with its folded surface. Yet, in contrast with the grandiose façade, a modest and small timber finished box figure stands next to it, marking the entrance to the office.

Situated next to the Yishun Pond, Tzu Chi Humanistic Youth Centre is recently opened to facilitate one of the organisation’s missions to provide supplementary education for the Singapore’s young generations. As a multipurpose public building, this youth centre houses facilities such as a function hall, classrooms, studios and workshops, study rooms, F&B outlets and other congregational spaces for members and visitors to meet and interact.

With the development of material technology these days, architects and interior designers are enabled to deliver designs of various ambiance and forms. In many cases, this convenience ends with instant designs, which are done without thoughtful considerations and only to pursue trending looks and forms. It is no wonder that many designs these days are alike, if not, mundane, and at times without a context.

Sitting on a generous 3,500-square-metre land plot, House68 is a private residence that tries to integrate its surrounding natural feature seamlessly. The architecture firm, Design Collective Architects (DCA) takes a bold viewpoint of how a building in the tropics should be, “Tropical architecture is not to shield and protect the users from the elements but to enhance the experience and bridge the relationship between them.”

With its location being in Ubud, Bali, Titik Dua Ubud Hotel has the potential to position itself as a destination hotel. What is more interesting is that this hotel’s location is adjacent to an art gallery, which the architect, andramatin, tries not to interfere. As the main land plot of the hotel is behind the gallery, the architect decided to elevate the entrance and create a 45-metre bridge that sits right above the gallery for the guests to reach the main building.

Just before the Covid-19 outbreak, the development of office space had reached the point of being an open, feature-rich, flexible, and comfortable space that was believed to increase the productivity of the present-day work. Many companies providing this kind of office was deemed a perfect model of today’s corporate environment, especially when it is compared to the appalling “cubicle farm” office that thrives some decades ago.

From the outside, Bioclimatic Community Mosque of Pamulang does not display any common features of a typical Indonesian mosque. Instead of a minaret or a dome, this building is distinguished by the two-coloured stacked porous façade, topped with a massive vessel-shaped roof. This mosque is located within a university complex, serving as a place of worship and a community centre for the campus’ communities and the surrounding neighbourhoods.

With the potential of being a supporting node of a popular destination, SHAU shapes Microlibrary Warak Kayu to reflect the local narrative. As its name suggests, warak is derived from warak ngedong—a local dragon-like mythical creature, which happens to be represented by the diamond-patterned timber façade. Furthermore, the use of stilt structure and mostly timber material embody the character of many traditional houses in Indonesia. This contextualised building brings affinity and appeal to the neighbourhoods and the visitors.

Among its typical neighbouring houses, 73M Jalan Senang that stands on a corner land plot appears unique with its monolithic look. Designed by ipli Architects, the house is a resemblance of the simple, ubiquitous gabled-roof house icon. Instead of defining the each part of the house differently, the building displays a unified look from the bottom to the top as if the shape is carved from a massive rectangular block. From its voluminous exterior, multiple randomly placed square openings create a slight giveaway of a light and porous interior.

Recently, the trend of incorporating an edible garden in one’s living quarter has grown significantly. Be it in a kitchen’s corner with plenty of natural lighting or on the whole rooftop area, edible home garden is regarded as one of the easiest and most effective way to introduce sustainable living to the masses.