Stiletto House

Approach

Creating this flood resistant house in the hot and humid climate of Malaysia required consideration of present-day climate, future climate change impacts, and how building elements and materials would respond to these concerns.

Our design reinterprets the traditional Malay house, elevating the building on stilts to ensure that living areas are always high and dry. We split the functions into three small buildings that are connected by bridges – containing services, living spaces and guest accommodation – and arranged these pavilions around the edges of the site, to enclose and define a central garden.

All of the rooms enjoy distant views of the surrounding limestone hills, and the private landscape minimises paved surfaces to ensure that buildings and gardens can withstand extreme weather events.

Process

This project is part of our ongoing search for alternative ways of living; one where people are not disconnected and removed from the environment, but rather they enjoy living in buildings connected to and with nature.

The process produces high-performance buildings that can be measured in two distinct ways:

• By assessing quantifiable aspects like passive design, water efficiency, and energy efficiency, and
• By assessing qualifiable aspects, which deliberately push people into closer connection with nature, tuning the occupants to understand the whereabouts and impact of sun, breeze and shade, and creating rituals and patterns of habitation that are informed by this knowledge.

Results

Stiletto house, as nicknamed by its owners, is a flood resistant house that incorporates climate design and timeless principles of eco architecture.

Elevating the building on stilts creates a flood resistant design and also contributes to catching higher velocity winds.

As a result, the interiors are comfortable, cool and breezy – despite the tropical location – thereby negating the need for air conditioning in the main living, dining and kitchen spaces.

The house was built using readily available local materials, albeit with non-traditional construction methods.

These materials were chosen for low embodied energy, including clay bricks and aerated concrete blocks, several species of hardwoods, steel and marble.

The primary structural steel supports long slender roofs that shade and protect the building from the harsh sun.

A large array of solar panels produces three times more energy than the owners need, with the excess sold back to the grid. The landscaping is irrigated by collected rainwater.

Our combination of innovative and traditional construction methods and details brings together cultural and technical aspects to create a flood resistant house and eco architecture, which is reflective of Malaysia’s social and historical diversity.