Star Bamboo project featured in The New York Times
A Sentosa Cove project we completed last April was featured in the The New York Times recently. I recognised the photos immediately from the Today article which syndicated the NY Times piece.
This project was particularly technically challenging. The architect was Guz Wilkinson, who had a strong vision of the design and it was up to us to execute it.
(NYTCREDIT: Kevin Miller for The New York Times)
The two flights of staircases were custom constructed from bamboo. We fabricated the steps at a specialist workshop, using the same bamboo material as our bamboo flooring. An added difficulty was ensuring that the steps look good from all sides (There was some design touches at the bottom, which can’t be seen from these photos).
The side barricade was clear transparent glass, creating a clever illusion of floating bamboo steps. The bamboo pieces were wrapped around internal metal steps that provided the necessary structural strength. Lastly, we finished by sanding and varnishing the bamboo steps.
Here’s another view of the house:
(NYTCREDIT: Kevin Miller for The New York Times)
You can see the staircases and bridge walkway on the left.
We also installed bamboo flooring over both the top and bottom of the bridge walkway. We did site-sanding and coating for the top surface. The bottom surface had to be installed with pre-finished bamboo flooring as there was no way of sanding it.
I had my concerns about this bridge as it was partially exposed to the elements, only protected by a half-height glass barricade. But the bamboo flooring has held up surprisingly well over the past 1.5 years, even though the house was just a stone’s throw from the ocean.
We also installed bamboo flooring for couple of bedrooms on the ground floor. That is about as eco-friendly a flooring as one could get. The rest of the rooms were simply bare limestone and epoxy-covered concrete.
All in all, a highly satisfying project.
