Anna Nagar Infill House

Squeezed between two existing houses with barely a hand's width of gap on either side, this plot ruled out side windows almost entirely. The old structure on it had relied on a single narrow airshaft and stayed dim through most of the day, whatever the weather outside.

We stopped trying to bring light in from the sides and pulled it in from above instead: a double-height living room under a central skylight, with the bedrooms wrapped around it on the upper floor. It's an unusual thing for a house this narrow, but the middle of the plan is often the brightest room in it now, at almost any hour.