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christopher gong ︎

Singapore, FITCH Design



G.L


Address: 99 Commonwealth Crescent
Project styling: Vintage rework



Commonwealth crescent is a small and quiet estate with mostly elders residing in the area. The location is famous of its food; 2 Chefs started in a small corner and now it is famous for the tze char, my favourites are the butter pork ribs & ginseng chicken. Eng Kee chicken wing is another hawker stall that has long queues during lunch hours. 

Homeowner shared with me that the apartment was brought down from her grandmother, therefore the space has much sentimental value to her. As a young girl, she often meet up with her grandma and hang around in the estate. She can easily identify the estate’s best coffee or tastiest sliced fish soup. 

Moving into the unit, G.L hoped for a newly renovated look but still able to retain certain memories of the space. Looking at the unit, we found two distinct materials that can be identified easily from her grandma’s. Firstly, the terrazzo flooring are too precious to be hacked away and replaced, it may look dirty but it is still able to be grind and polished. Secondly, the kitchen wall tiles has its distinct peranakan look, the downside is its vibrant green color, it’s difficult to match with any color.



To Design & Plan

Homeowner likes solid colors to blend together with black paint work or powdercoated fittings. The colors has to suit the terrazzos colors, and it shouldnt be too loud. We decided to go for EDL’s matcha, it has a soothing vibe, feels almost naturalistic. 

On the other hand, the kitchen requires a careful plan on its layout and configuration. It is a small space to include the laundry area. We needed to fit in a washing machine, dryer and hanging clothes rack. As floorplan are not always drawn to the exact scale, the space will differs slightly larger or smaller. Therefore it is difficult to gauge without going down to site for actual measurements. Below shows the renders based on the floorplan’s measurement. Sometimes on image it feels fitting but on actual ground it might not be feasible.


Tapes & Markings


Based on the plans I shared with homeowner. I have a look to look at the space more acurrately. On the left hand side photo was the initial plan that we wanted to have the washing machine and basin right outside the bathroom. But looking at the yellow tapes, I felt the space is very small, there’s a tendancy that homeowner will bump into the corner in future. On the right photo, the diagonal line shows the in between space of the cabinets, in a range of 800-1000mm will be practical.


To Hack & Dismantle


On commencement day, our hackers took out the wall & floor tiles in the kitchen, hacked out a new opening for the toilet and brought up the new tiles / materials. Hackers help to lay the floor protection as well. Certain things like fans are not to be disposed of, they are all kept safely in the common bedroom.



Tilings up!


We have retained some of the old tiles that was from my homeowner’s grandma. The bathroom shows the new tiles and the window’s opening are nicely cemented smooth. Next will be installing the window there!



Following works~


Moving forward, carpentry & tabletop are installed. The paintings are done on two coats. The image below shows the first coat. More importantly look at how the terrazzos shine after polished! It looks as clean as new. The only thing is that the skirting can’t be polished. The huge polishing machine aren’t able to clamp down the sides to grind and polish. At most the skirting can only be cleaned and touch up on the cracks.