Curved thresholds, textured walls and a steady beige palette reshape this Bukit Batok five-room flat into a tactile, quietly immersive home designed for long-term living.
11 February 2026
Home Type: 5-room HDB flat
Floor Area: 1,238sqft
Text by Janice Seow
In this 1,238-square-foot resale flat in Bukit Batok, softness is not an afterthought — it is the architecture. Designed by Vanessa Chua for a family relocating for their daughter’s schooling, the five-room HDB has been recast as a beige-toned landscape of curves and texture. The brief was clear from the outset: “The key requirements leaned towards a Japandi style with wabi-sabi elements, and a beige-toned palette,” Vanessa shares. After years of living with industrial contrasts and electric blue accents, the homeowners were ready for restraint.
What distinguishes this home is how that restraint is constructed. Rather than leaning on décor, Vanessa embeds the language of Japandi into the architecture itself. “The beige-toned palette was carried throughout the entire home, with textured finishes extending from the walls to the ceilings,” she explains. The effect is immersive without tipping into heaviness — a continuous wrap of warm neutrals rendered in matte, textured finishes that diffuse light rather than bounce it back.
Organic gestures interrupt the grid of a typical HDB layout. In the living room, a pebble-shaped feature wall sits next to the television, while a large curved opening softens the threshold to the balcony. The kitchen entrance is edged in textured plaster, and made deliberately irregular — a tactile nod to wabi-sabi that moves the space beyond trend. “Wabi-sabi elements were highlighted at the kitchen entrance, where the rough edges accentuate the curved walls,” Vanessa notes. It’s an architectural gesture that subtly recalibrates the spatial rhythm of the home, easing the transition between dining and kitchen.
This was a full gut renovation. The existing flooring was overlaid while the rest of the space was fully hacked, and the original enclosed kitchen was opened up with glass panels and doors. The revised layout prioritises flow and breathing room, particularly important as the lady of the house works mainly from home. That sense of ease is carefully calibrated: a rounded sofa from Woosa anchors the living room; linen curtains from Aratamete soften the master bedroom; and adjustable lighting shifts towards a sunset-toned warmth as day turns to evening.
Material selections reinforce the calm without flattening it. Soft wood tones sit alongside beige microcement laminates and indoor plants; Melmer Stone’s sintered surfaces define the kitchen countertop and backsplash as well as the integrated bathroom sink; and Hafary tiles and Rigel fittings ground the wet areas with durability. Even the dining pendants hover like folded fabric, echoing the sculpted lines on the walls.
Completed at an estimated renovation cost of $120,000, this Bukit Batok flat demonstrates that warmth can be structural rather than decorative. Here, curves are not ornamental flourishes — they shape how light lands, how one moves, and how the day unwinds.
Interior design by Vanessa Chua
Photography by Ng Qi Hui
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