Singapore, Interiors –
The all-white Canvas House for co-living by MINISTRY OF DESIGN gives you a blank canvas to dream
Canvas House at Blair Road 
Entrance facade 
Entrance interior
YOU MIGHT THINK they’ve gove mad. It’s like they used a giant spray paint gun and blasted every thing in white. You feel you’re in a dream.
White ceilings, white walls, white fabric, white furniture, white fittings…
Ministry of Design’s concept for Canvas House located in a shophouse in Blair Road was to blur the boundaries between space and object. The blanket of white provides a canvas for the future, and focuses historical preservation in concentrated areas.
Stairs 
Dressing table
Flash glimpses of colour and texture break the white blindness to remind you that you’re in beautiful heritage shophouse instead of a refrigerator – vignettes on decorative vases, ceramic plates and corner legs of wooden screens, vanity dressers and chairs; brick walls in concentrated circles of history.
MOD creator and design director Colin Seah elaborates:
“When it comes to adaptive reuse projects, the question is always the same, how do we tread the line between the past and the present? If one opts for the project to be just about preservation, it’s as good as time standing still… which could be paralysing and inhibiting. But at the same time, neither do we want to disregard history completely by creating something too foreign or novel. Our response was to layer over the existing history with a proverbial blank canvas whilst leaving choreographed glimpses into the past, blanketing both space and the furniture in it – allowing us to blur the inherent boundaries between past and present, object and space.”
MOD invites you to imagine a future with Dream, a text-based neon piece that the studio created, with a quote by Thomas Jefferson that encapsulates MOD’s approach to Canvas House.
Fast Facts:
Figment, the developer of Canvas House, gave MOD a fixed budget and just 4 months (design, sourcing, fit out), to reimagine the interiors, with the aim of renting out the suites to expats for 3-12 month stays. Rentals start from S$3300 a month.
Story by Carol Kraal. Photographs courtesy of Ministry of Design