TALE OF A TREE AND A HOUSE

The Singapore home of Ho Kwon Cjan, Banyan Tree Holdings’ senior vice-president and group chief architect of Banyan Tree, is a Good Class Bungalow designed around a tree

- By Luo Jingmei. Photography by Studio Periphery

There are few things that can make a person feel awestruck such that a few minutes of silence is necessary for quiet admiration. One is being in a grand cathedral or some other similarly towering space or glorious edifice. In my case, I am standing at the base of a rain tree so fetching and commanding in presence that I long to linger a little more.

The tree stands at a far corner of a Good Class Bungalow whose owner knows more than a thing or two about building in and with nature. Ho Kwon Cjan is the senior vice-president and group chief architect of Banyan Tree Holdings. A recipient of the Singapore Institute of Architects Gold Medal, he is the brother of Ho Kwon Ping, the founder and executive chairman of the same company that, 31 years ago, turned an abandoned former tin mine in Phuket into a tropical modern resort.

This plot was where the two brothers stayed in their younger years before their parents' passing. It was subsequently subdivided, and the family home demolished. The semiretired Kwon Cjan currently shuttles between Singapore and Thailand, where he oversees a few of the company's projects.

Born in Bangkok, Kwon Cjan came to Singapore at 15 years old. After studying architecture at the National University of Singapore, he worked with local architect Tay Kheng Soon at Akitek Tenggara for several years before his family bought a large piece of land in Phuket that eventually grew to become the multi-property Laguna Phuket enclave over the years. "I was called to do the basic design and one thing led to another, so I stayed in Thailand," says the architect, who wishes to eventually retire in Singapore.

LIVING MONUMENT