15 Mohamed Sultan Road is a sensitive yet forward-looking reimagining of a conserved shophouse with a six-storey rear extension. The urban design intent was to preserve the authentic character of the street by ensuring the historic façade remains the primary experience. The new extension is recessed and deliberately kept out of the sightline, allowing the shophouse frontage to continue defining the urban fabric while discreetly accommodating higher intensity and contemporary uses.

The conservation works focused on restoring the French windows and internal courtyard, reinstating the light, ventilation, and layered spatial quality of the original building. A subtle but powerful architectural intervention is introduced in the form of a concrete silo housing the fire escape. This vertical element threads through the slabs, expressing itself discreetly on the exterior as a quiet marker of new insertion.

The client’s request for a clear, flexible footprint guided the spatial planning, ensuring adaptable layouts for diverse future uses. At the rear, the extension adopts a modern, restrained language of full-height glazing, maximizing daylight and external views while providing a crisp counterpoint to the historic fabric. The result is a balanced composition of heritage conservation and contemporary urban intensification.