01 The Atelier
The Atelier,
36 Armenian Street.
A 3,400 square-foot design studio in the heart of old Singapore — where every Singgahsana project is drawn, detailed and signed off before it reaches a worksite.
02 · Founder's Note
Adrina Tan, Principal Designer & Founder
Founded the studio in 2009.
Fifteen years on, we still keep the studio small on purpose.
I started Singgahsana in 2009 in a 600 square-foot room above Tras Street, with one drafting table, a phone line and the conviction that residential design in Singapore deserved a slower, more considered hand than the industry was offering. We moved into 36 Armenian Street in 2017. The studio is now 3,400 square feet, the team is twenty-two, and the principle has not changed: every project is owned end-to-end by one of our four principal designers, none of whom average fewer than eighteen years of practice.
We cap our year at thirty-eight to forty-two projects. Last year we turned away seventy-one per cent of the enquiries that came in. That number is not a sales line — it is the discipline that lets us keep our joinery workshop in-house, our fixed-price contracts honest, and our warranty at twenty-four months. It is also why eighty-seven per cent of our new work in 2024 arrived through a past client, a former colleague, or a homeowner who had already watched us finish someone else's home.
If you are reading this, you are likely considering a renovation of consequence. I hope the pages that follow give you a clear sense of who would actually be sitting across from you at the studio. We are a small team. We plan to stay that way.
— A. Tan
03 · The Principals
Four principals. Your project starts with one of them.
A principal designer is assigned at the first consultation and remains the single point of accountability through handover. No project is ever handed to a junior team — by design, by structure, by name.
Supported by nine interior designers, five project managers and four master craftsmen, all full-time, all under the same roof.
The MacPherson workshop. 8,000 sqft, four master craftsmen, ten to fourteen days from drawing to finished carcass.
04 · Workshop & After-care
The operational backbone behind the studio's promises.
Two decisions made early on hold the entire model together: we built our own joinery workshop, and we wrote a real after-care programme. Together they are the reason our fixed-price contracts hold, our warranty runs to twenty-four months, and most of our new work arrives by referral.
-
In-house workshop, MacPherson
Eight thousand square feet of joinery capacity under our direct supervision. Custom wardrobes, kitchen cabinetry, feature panels and built-ins are produced in ten to fourteen days, against a six-to-ten-week lead time at firms that outsource. Every joint, finish and fitting passes one of four master craftsmen before it leaves the floor.
-
Single fixed-price contract
One contract covers design, custom joinery, MEP coordination and styling. Industry surveys place average residential overruns at fifteen to twenty-two per cent; across our last eighty-four projects the variance has averaged under two per cent, because the variables the in-house workshop absorbs never reach your invoice.
-
24-month warranty, real after-care
Twenty-four months on all joinery and finishes — triple the eight-month industry baseline — backed by a documented after-care programme: scheduled snagging visits at three, twelve and twenty-four months, a named after-care coordinator, and direct chat access to your project manager for the lifetime of the home.
-
Live client portal
Real-time project photographs from the worksite, milestone tracking against your programme, and a direct line to your project manager — used across two hundred and forty-plus completed projects. You see the home being built, in the order it is being built, without having to ask.
05 · The Number Is the Discipline
“We design thirty-eight to forty-two projects a year. We turn away the rest. The number is the discipline — it is what lets a principal sit across from every client, what lets a joiner finish a wardrobe by hand, what lets a warranty mean something twelve years later. Boutique is not a marketing word here. It is a budget.”
Adrina Tan · Founder's address to the studio, January 2024
In 2024, the studio turned away 71% of inbound enquiries to protect fit. 87% of new business arrived through past-client referral.
06 · Begin
Meet a principal. One hour.
36 Armenian Street.
The studio's first conversation is a paid, in-person design consultation with a principal designer — one hour, in the studio, focused entirely on your home. There is no obligation, and no salesperson on the other side of the desk.
S$280 · 60 minutes · one principal designer
Studio: 36 Armenian Street, #03-02, Singapore 179934 · By appointment, Tuesday to Saturday · [email protected] · +65 6235 0188