'Relative value': A home built for family unity

Maria Endah Hulupi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A house is more than just a place that reflects the people living in it or hints at the owner's personality or lifestyle. It can also embody the principles and values by which the owners live their life.

That is true in the case of young architect Evan Davin Lee, whose experiments with geometric shapes and materials at his family's house is concentrated on the concept of family unity.

Its design is unique: It reminds some of a church, the Sydney Opera House, a ship or even a Minang traditional house from West Sumatra, making it unique from other residences in the exclusive Pantai Indah Kapuk housing complex in North Jakarta.

Leading in from its Chinese-style entrance, it has a small living room, five bedrooms, three bathrooms -- including one en suite in the master bedroom -- a hobby/drawing room, kitchen, dining room, pantry, library, seating room and a study that has been transformed into an office for Evan's architectural firm.

The post-modern house, standing on a 552-square-meter plot, was designed with a round structure as its core, with four other structures around it.

"According to Chinese beliefs, a round shape reflects a whole, united family and I used the shape as the core of the house with all rooms in this house facing toward or with an orientation to the core," he explained, adding there were also six pillars that symbolize the family members and that "support" the core.

Due to the round center, every room has a curved wall, which Evan said helped to remind members of his family about the core of family unity.

The curved walls also opened up opportunities for him to design furniture that fit the respective room's function.

"The house's uncommon shape needs unique-shaped furniture as well. It was an exciting challenge to create them but I thought there had to be a solution," Evan said.

Acknowledging people's preferences for a more conservative house that focused only on certain shapes or materials, the architect said the house was his first "experiment".

"When creating this house, I freed myself from restrictions. I used different shapes and materials .... This is my first design and I wanted it to be my best, so I put everything I had in mind to make it unique."

For building materials, Evan chose mostly local natural materials, like timber and marble as well as other natural stones, which he playfully combined to create an interesting interior effect.

The house has large windows with a huge oval-shaped window in the core structure, from which the sunlight provides a play of light in different shadows in the family room from dawn to dusk.

"No artificial lighting is needed during daylight," Evan said.

The house's multilayered walls serve not only as interesting accents but also inconspicuous covers for vents that allow air to flow into the interior.

Evan explained that the bedrooms were designed in such a way as to enable the paths to cross of all the family members, thus ensuring interaction between them -- in harmony with the concept of the house.

"The bedrooms are not spacious and are very functional. No TV set, refrigerator or in-room bathroom, except in the master bedroom. Basically they are only for sleeping in. This does not encourage people to stay long in their bedrooms," he said.

The lighting design was created to meet functional purposes for the interior as well as the esthetic purpose of the exterior.

The front garden was also designed to match the overall family unity concept with access that leads to the core structure.

The rear garden, where a construction project is currently taking place to make a basement, is embellished with bamboo plants that radiate an oriental atmosphere in the area, accentuated by a large, curved stone wall that also helps direct air to the house interior.

Evan chose tropical plants that require low maintenance, like bamboo and palm trees. "None of the members of the family has a special liking for gardening," he said with a laugh.