ABOUT KNTAARCHITECTS

Founded in 1993 by Mr. Tan Teck Kiam, KNTA Architects is a hallmark of consistency that provides master planning, architecture and interior design services. Over the years, the firm has taken on a wide range of projects. They include urban design, planning and architecture design of educational institutions, private housing developments, office buildings, and retail interiors. These projects are located both locally and overseas in places including Beijing, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne and Seattle. This has created a broad multi-disciplinary foundation to offer clients a wide range of services.

Private dwellings form a significant part of the work of the Practice, and forms are derived from art and sculpture, particularly through an interest in the sculpturing of space. The firm has a passionate sensitivity to tectonics, paying close attention to details, and utilising opportunities where light enters interior spaces. Check House I and Corfe Place House are some of the firm’s key projects that highlight this design language. The delicate shaping of spaces in these projects where one volume embraces another in a dynamic and continuous dialogue is a prelude to the later projects such as Check House II, Jalan Lada Puteh Terrace Houses and Singapore Management University city campus.

KNTA Architects draws inspiration from contemporary arts and culture of different regions of the world. The architecture is shaped as a combination of identities - a symbiosis of international culture of the east and the west - that has been consolidated through both personal and professional experiences of the architects and designers with the firm’s design philosophy influences and interests. The dynamism of a small firm allows it to invent and explore innovatively; it produces bold works that stay connected to the cultural roots of socially responsible architecture that challenges Singapore’s urban landscape.

The root of the firm’s designs stems from its residential projects, where the family being the smallest unit of living spaces in society, is the basis of the design process from which investigation of other building forms can be made. Its vibrancy and dynamics allow it to invent and explore innovatively, producing works that challenge the notion of Building in Singapore’s urban landscape. At the urban design scale, the practice extends the human-centric experience in architectural design to the planning of outdoor spaces, focusing on the connection between man and the environment in tangible and intangible dimensions. The emphasis on wellbeing becomes central in the production of public spaces.

At present, the firm endeavors to delve into an inquiry of the role of architecture in a future economy, where artificial intelligence and the internet is incorporated into one’s daily life. We believe that architecture will have to build upon such a consideration and may not necessarily rely on the traditional paradigm of architecture and spatial form anymore. The firm seeks to create architecture that takes into account the rise of a new generation that coexists between the real and virtual world, and how that impacts spatial formation.

FEATURES IN EXHIBITIONS

Apart from practice, KNTA Architects was involved in international exhibitions such as Singapore Management University City Campus design at the 2007 Hong Kong Shenzhen Biennale and the “Singapore Built and Unbuilt” at the 2006 Venice Biennale. KNTA Architects likewise participated in events such as “Cities on the Move” Installation Art at Bordeaux, Copenhagen, Bangkok, and Helsinki in 1999, “Journey to the East” Installation Art at Hong Kong Arts Centre. “Cities on the Move” Installation Art at the CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, France, “KeDa KeXiao - Contemporary Chinese Architecture” (organised by Architectural Association, London), and “Borderlines” – Grieskai 74 Installation Art with filmmaker Mr. Eric Khoo at Graz, Austria.

FEATURED IN SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Monument32, 1999, ISSN: 1320-1115
Singapore: The Next Generation

Space, 2001, ISSN: 0219-306X
Singapore: Architecture of a Global City

Dialogue, 2008, ISSN: 977-156104800-8
Singapore Re-discovered
Featured Singapore Management University City Campus

Architecture and Urbanism 95:06 , 1995, No. 297
Featured KNTA Architects

Architectural Houses 02, ISSN: 1137-3326
Featured Check House I

World Architecture, 1997, ISSN: 0956-9758
Country Focus - Singapore
Featured Corfe Place

Singapore Architect, 1997, No. 195
Locating Architecture: Corfe Place House