This Home Was Built Around A Thriving Art Collection

Designing a home with your art collection in mind can be a daunting task. Where do you start? Should your interiors match your art pieces? Should they contrast each other? Interior Designer Louie Gotinga of Siglo Interiors believes if you have an art collection, chances are you already know what you like and what you don’t like. 

“I think collecting art is very much similar with knowing and deciding what style you want to do for your interiors and architecture. I think it’s important to not really overthink it. If you like art, and you trust your instincts, and go for your gut then there’s going to be an overarching sense of things that you will select,” Gotinga shares.

For a recent client of his, he was tasked to create a space for a couple and their art collection. Although he was given general free reign, the client had only a few requirements:

1) Preserve and keep all builds and finishes original to the developer’s turnover that don’t necessarily need changing

2) Incorporate a japandi feel to the space, and

3) To create dark and somber pockets around the unit to mirror the artwork they have displayed.

From the entryway, one must enter through a narrow hallway which Siglo emphasized even further by making it narrower. “If we can’t get a big entrance, we thought ‘let’s make it even more narrow’” he says. He added pillars on both sides and even lowered the ceiling. On the right side he placed shelves and storage for shoes and artwork. This strategy prepares the one entering for a big reveal at the end. 

A black Gregoria chair by Ito Kish and a Chiquita stool by Kenneth Cobonpue create a seating area beside floor to ceiling windows. A Camaleonda sofa sections off the space and surrounds a coffee table from Nazareno Lichauco’s Desert Collection. A playful Yeo Kaa sculpture with a bomb necklace around its neck stands in one corner. 

The space may feel a bit too maximalist to be described as japandi, but a closer look at the main elements that make the space definitely reveals it has the building blocks that define the style - clean lines and the use of natural materials. “One of the major challenges of this project is that we used oak veneer for all the panels except for some cabinetry in the bathrooms. Those panels in the living room that are slanted on the ceiling and those that are on the hallway going to the main entry are all oak veneer. So it was a very difficult thing to handle. The contractor also wasn’t accustomed to using it,” Gotinga explains. “Most condos at this stage would use laminates instead. Now most people who enter the home really feel the difference. They get the feeling that it’s real wood without even touching it. There’s a smell, aura and ambience by using real veneer.”

The light wood paneling ties the whole unit together creating a cohesive canvas for the art and furniture pieces to shine. A large Yao Sampana painting becomes a focal point of the unit. “That Yao Sampana piece was one of the first things that we placed in the condo. We wanted to create some tension there,” he reveals. “It keeps the space threading a delicate line between being aggressively modern and being quietly contemporary.”

A dining set designed by Benji Reyes adds to the eclectic collection of the unit. Aurelia pendant lights by Vito Selma scale the oversized wall art. “The whole effect is quite ethereal with the slender profiles of the dining chairs alluding to the theme of the art. The motive was to have a burst of character but still achieve a sense of restraint,” he adds.

The primary bedroom features the unit’s original floor planks yet exude a fresh look thanks to the television wall that also acts as a brise soleil from the afternoon sun. This wall also becomes a vanity on the opposite side. Perfectly matched pendant lights in light oak hang by the bed. Above a kidney shaped couch hangs a painting by Emmanuel Garibay.

Upon the client’s request, the floor to ceiling windows of the primary bathroom were to be covered. To compensate the lessened natural light, Gotinga thought of adding an artificial skylight behind latticework. It was important these features were also in the same light wood found in the rest of the unit. “The challenge was how to bring the concept we came up with for the living and dining space and how to bring it into the bathrooms without changing the tiles, without changing the fixtures. We put ledges and a pegboard behind the water closet just to translate the looks of the other spaces into this space.” 

The home office sits on the opposite end of the hallway from the Powder room and was designed to be an interim space that can later be converted to another bedrooom. A custom black lacquered desk sits in front of slanted shelves echoing the slanted ceiling from the living and dining space. The walls are darker which also reflect some of the art that the owners collect. 

“We found sense in all of the things that they had. There’s really a story behind it. There’s a theme already and that was the inspiration to the home’s interiors. We love not being too serious or too rigid in the style that we do. Everything is eclectic now and we want the personality of the one living in the house to shine through the space,” Gotinga says.