SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - Robert Cheng, founder and design principal of Brewin Design Office, has given ARA Private Funds’ office building at 61 Robinson Road a fresh perspective. (See also: ARA fund buys Robinson Centre for $340 mil)
“The new interiors of the building take their cue from the existing building facade and the interior architectural envelope, with its Art Deco proportions and details,” says Cheng.
The exterior marble façade and building architecture showcase ornate classical details, while the main lobby has a soaring 10m-high ceiling. Cheng saw the opportunity for the renovation to “enhance the existing permanent elements” like most of the façade and the interior volume.
Cheng describes the Art Deco details and materials as “contemporised aspects of a period from the 1920s”. “They create a warm, hospitality-inspired environment, through a warm beige palette of marble, limestone and rose-gold metal,” he adds.
The lobby walls are lined with six horizontal bands of 8cm thick “concave-curved’ limestone, building up to a 4m-tall wall base that supports another 6m of faceted rose-gold-toned metal walls, altogether making up the walls for the 10m-tall lobby envelope. “The curvature on the solid thick stone walls is a rare method of design and fabrication which recalls how buildings in Manhattan were decorated and built in the early part of the 20th century,” says Cheng.
The floor lobbies are designed with the same attention to ornate details. Ribbed, curved pipes in rose-gold metal line the transoms to all the elevator door portals. Floors and walls are lined with beige marble, with variations in tones and textures.
Fronting the lobby and running across the length of the building is a five-foot-way. The building structure of 61 Robinson straddles over this five-foot way. A textured, mirrored metal ceiling mounted 4m above the finished floor accentuates the high proportions of this passageway, Cheng explains.
Integration of the public passageway with the main lobby is created through the use of the different floor materials in a receding pattern. Hence, the interior floor is merged with the five-foot way, which helps to blend the public circulation with the private office lobby. “This encourages and accentuates a sense of openness to the lobby which was once more enclosed,” says Cheng.
“With the new changes to the building façade and interiors, a rebranding exercise for the building has also been activated,” he adds. The former Robinson Centre will now be called 61 Robinson.