Breathing a bit of life into a modern home
Maria Endah Hulupi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The overall atmosphere in the house in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, is minimalist and modern, but it is also a place to live in. The designers have successfully accommodated the owners' love of art and the spirit of fun of their young family.
The two-story house has a master bedroom with a walk-in closet and a bathroom, two bedrooms, three bathrooms, two family rooms (one in each story), a playroom, living room, dining room, kitchen and a bar, study, carport and a garage.
The owners, a couple with three young children, appointed architect Abraham "Bram" Baastians and interior designer Anies Alkurratu Aini of PT Apta Tara Tisti Design to do the interior planning and oversee the construction project.
"We added some openings in walls and enlarged most of the windows to enable proper ventilation and sunlight penetration. We also altered the interior flow so that it would be in harmony with feng shui principles," Anies said.
Bram specially designed furniture to keep to the separate design concepts of the different sections of the house.
One of these areas is the bar, which is designed to give the impression that it is part of a huge painting composition.
"The owner greatly appreciates artwork and paintings and we tried to accommodate this whenever possible," Anies said.
Two three-compartment panels were added to the wall in the foyer and the family room to display artwork on the same "theme".
To please the children, the family room on the first floor was designed with a "smiley face" concept. The idea was materialized with the use of a specially designed console, whose shape resembles a smile, with two large downlights on the wall above it as the "eyes".
The study, equipped with high-tech facilities, is a functional, modern working area with a formal atmosphere. Wooden material dominates the room and is used for the walls and cabinet.
Color was playfully added as a decorative element to the doors of the two bedrooms for the children. The designers chose colorful balloons to decorate the glass panels on the bedroom doors.
"Every kid loves balloons, and they add color to the otherwise stiff looking bedroom door. The glass panels were added to enable the parents to check on their children while they are inside the room," Anies said.
As an accent to the stairway area, six panels of stained glass, depicting feminine yet dynamic curves, were put on the facing wall.
"We didn't want to add too many details or decorative objects in the stairway area in order to keep it clean," Anies said.
A ubiquitous decorative element in the interior is the sunflower-carved wooden panels, used on wooden walls, bedheads and even incorporated into the windows.
For the garden, Bram specially designed a wrought-iron main gate, embellished with the shape of a three-dimensional leafy plant. Its open panels allow the owners to look out to the street.
It took artisans about three months to create the leaves on the gate.
"The role of the main gate in most houses is to separate the private area from the public area. For this house, however, such strict separation is lessened because this gate has many openings where the solid parts (of the gate) are the leaves," Bram said.
"I designed the gate with the aim to make it an element that unites the house's private area and its exterior, instead of separating them."