This commercial building project involved conserving a 3-storey Art-Deco shophouse and adding a new 6-storey building at the rear, following secondary settlement conservation guidelines to preserve the streetscape of Upper Circular Road. As with many historic shophouses with narrow frontages, there is always the challenge of balancing the need to integrate modern system requirements—such as accessibility, wider corridors, and the addition of a lift and fire safety systems—while still maximizing usable area efficiency.

To overcome this, we reimagined the fire escape stairs, typically a utilitarian feature, as a central design element, encouraging its use as the primary circulation path and focal point of the building. The staircase was designed to foster spontaneous interaction and create a sense of community among users. At the fourth level, the stairs lead to an outdoor terrace garden located on the former clay roof of the conserved building, providing a space for respite and informal gatherings.

The central staircase layout also served a functional purpose by optimizing the office space, resulting in a regular-shaped layout on both ends of each floor for better planning. Each floor includes a pantry and restroom, allowing flexibility for leasing as individual office units or entire floors. This flexible layout also allows the building to be leased to a single tenant, making the staircase an internal circulation feature that seamlessly connects floors and departments, encouraging interaction and collaboration among employees.

The rear extension’s façade was deliberately understated in response to the adjacent Riverwalk building. Fair-faced concrete was selected to complement the restored Shanghai plaster façade, where layers of paint and dirt were painstakingly stripped away to reveal the original finishes. The vertical strip window and random fenestrations along the façade create a diffuse daylight quality in the staircase, adding a playful interaction of light and shadow that enhances the spatial experience.