This is an anonymous story collected from the public as part of the Human Archive Project
I‘ve lived in this home for two years, it’s a fairly new HDB block. We’ve been waiting for this place for five years so when it came we were very happy because our kids needed space. We were living with my mother in law so it was kind of squeezy and sometimes there was a bit of tension. But once I got here we didn’t have money to do up the space.
We are Christian so we prayed and we believe in Providence, so there were things that happened that made this possible. We had a friend who just came to my house and dropped off a whole bunch of tools. At that time I didn’t know carpentry so I just went online to learn. That saved a lot of money because then we could just buy the bare essentials and I started doing all this. Most of the stuff I drilled in myself so that we could have a nice space. Another thing was furniture - people would just give us a voucher, so we had furniture. Some people would ask what we needed, and then said...We’ll bless you...and so we had a washer and a fridge.
This house is a house of Providence, this house is a house of answered prayers. This house is also a dream come true. For Singaporeans, space is very tight.
When I got this HDB I was very excited. My inspiration is Ban Shigeru, a Japanese architect. He works with very natural materials like bamboo and paper to make houses and I find it so brilliant, so beautiful. I went to look for materials inspired by him. Everything is light, and clear, wooden, natural. It is something that I find lacking in a lot of HDB spaces, it’s a huge concrete space and people don’t know how to rest in their homes. Our materials enable us to rest.
Since we didn’t have much, and we also don’t need much, we live our lives very simply. So in case of a fire, I will run out, and have nothing left. But it’s all right, because we like a simple life. I think Singapore is very busy. I think if you don’t stop and smell the roses, you know it’s gonna pass you by. So when we homeschool, it’s with that in mind. It’s why we are just really going to enjoy life as a family: for richer for poorer, ‘till death do us part. We really want to be together.
So this house is precious to us that way, it symbolizes so many things.
I’m obsessed with the notions of time and eternity and family. It crops up in a lot of my things. It’s there, it’s inevitable… it’s us, you know? Time really starts for us when we are born. So it’s a powerful currency.