When this Damansara Heights bungalow first crossed our desk, it was a 1990s house that had served three decades of family life and was ready for the next thirty. The clients wanted a renovation, not a rebuild. They wanted the house they had loved to feel new without becoming someone else’s house.
The brief
A young couple with two small children and a third on the way. The bungalow had belonged to one of their parents and carried family memory in its bones. The brief was specific: respect what works, replace what doesn’t, and make the house make sense for the next generation that would grow up in it.
The original plan had a confused circulation, a kitchen tucked behind the dining room, and a primary bedroom that did not relate to the rest of the upper floor. The bones — the structure, the orientation, the relationship to the garden — were good. The interior had outgrown itself.
The strategy
Open the heart, keep the perimeter
We left the external envelope of the house essentially untouched. Inside, we redrew the ground floor as a single open volume connecting living, dining and kitchen, with a long sliding system to the rear garden. The matriarch’s old kitchen became the new dry kitchen with island; a new wet kitchen was built behind it for the cooking that defines daily Malaysian life.
Rationalise the upper floor
The upper floor was reorganised around three principles: a private parents’ wing with its own seating area, a children’s wing planned for three rather than two, and a small connecting study that the parents and children both use. Each child has their own bedroom; they share a bathroom with two basin areas to reduce friction.
Bring the garden up close
The original house had been pushed back from the garden by a wide concrete terrace that was too hot to use. We shaded the terrace properly, installed ceiling fans, and reduced its hard surface in favour of a planted edge. The terrace is now a fourth room of the house and is in daily use.
Materials
A restrained palette designed to age. Honed Carrara marble for principal floors. Malaysian merbau for the staircase and upper floor flooring. Brushed brass hardware. Linen drapery and upholstery throughout. The kitchen island is a single book-matched Calacatta slab — the home’s one piece of architectural marble drama.
The walls are a quiet warm white with deeper tones reserved for moments of intentional drama: a deep green library, a soft terracotta children’s bathroom, a near-black principal bathroom that is the most private moment in the house.
Family memory, kept
Two pieces of the original house were kept and renewed. The original solid timber front door, sanded and refinished. A built-in dining cabinet from the matriarch’s era, repainted and rehoused in the new dining room. They are small gestures, but the family notices them every day.
Project facts
- Location: Damansara Heights, Kuala Lumpur
- Plot size: ~6,500 sq ft
- Built area: ~5,400 sq ft over two levels
- Project type: Full renovation, structural re-organisation
- Timeline: 11 months from concept to handover
- Designed by: Designed Design Associates
Working with DDA
If you are planning a bungalow renovation in Damansara Heights or anywhere in the Klang Valley, we would be glad to hear from you.