Developed by 8M Real Estate, Woha’s latest completed hotel project in Singapore, 21 Carpenter, used to be the historical remittance house Chye Hua Seng Wee Kee. The Marriott Bonvoy property, which will be the second Singapore hotel listed under the Design Hotel collection, is an amalgamation of four conserved shophouses along Carpenter Street, topped with a five-storey extension in the form of an enigmatic, abstract volume.
“Waiting for the homebound wind”, “Looking at the sea, the ship is leaving”—wandering around the hotel’s premises, you might notice these words if you look carefully enough: on the walls, in the lift, on the aluminium screen wrapping the building. These are translations from the Chinese letters of the labourers who built Singapore, sent through remittance houses to their homeland. Mostly illiterate, they would…
