The house is white, two storeys, probably from the 1930s. The bolt on the garden gate is easily slid from the street; entrance, windows and terrace door are all wide open. Pinot, a curly-coated Lagotto Romagnolo, comes bounding out. He’s followed by Nilou, aged 14, barefoot and in shorts, and her younger sister Tahmi, 11, in a blue summer dress. Behind them, framed in the door, appears Schirin Taraz-Breinholt, lady of the house, architect and native of Germany. She lives here in this tropical paradise, less than a 20-minute drive from downtown Singapore.

An Asian adventure

It was Schirin’s husband Greg, a Brit she had met while studying architecture at Zurich’s ETH, who had presented her with the ‘Singapore Plan’ back in 2004. He had a job offer, he said, a really good one. And Singapore: wouldn’t that be cool? Schirin was 31 at the time, and had never been to Asia before. “I was so excited,” she recalls, “so of course I said yes.” It wouldn’t be forever, after all. “At first we thought we’d stay two or three years,” she explains. “Then it was till we had children. Then it was till the children reached school age.” Both their girls now go to the local German European School; and the family have just relocated from the city centre to their home today on the edge of the MacRitchie nature reserve.

“I felt comfortable here right from the start,” says Schirin. The city was excitingly different – the smells, the food, the people, the nature – yet not totally foreign. “I was able to get about easily and safely. The public transport’s reliable, the supermarkets stock everything you need, and jogging in the park or going out for a beer is no problem at all.”

A dream job

It may have been a happy coincidence; but it was probably also her training, her sense of commitment and her upbeat and outgoing nature that landed Schirin a job at the reputed WOHA architectural practice. WOHA is renowned throughout Asia for its progressive ‘green’ buildings, and is well at home in the Garden City of Singapore, which, despite its current construction boom, is growing ever greener – as is evidenced by such projects as the Gardens by the Bay, which have sprung up out of nowhere into a genuine urban jungle.

The open-plan offices occupied by WOHA’s 100-strong Singapore workforce are located in the heart of the city in two historic shophouses with an idyllic roof terrace. There, in the chequerboard of light that angles through the building’s six floors, trials are conducted of which plants are best suited to low-light rooms, terraces and vertical gardens.

One of WOHA’s hallmark projects is even visible from its offices: the spectacular 367-room Parkroyal Collection Pickering luxury hotel. Plants cascade down its tall undulating façades, whose rice paddy-like terraces are home to ferns, palms and frangipani trees.

“For architects it’s exhilarating to live in a city that is evolving so rapidly and in which so much is being sought, planned and implemented,” Schirin says. “Global issues like density, metropolises, population and climate change are all very present and tangible here. We know precisely why we’re doing what we’re doing, and why we’re investing so much of our energies into environmentally aware and people-friendly construction.”

A fascinating variety

For lunch Schirin will often head to the simple Pho.VN Thai eatery a few streets away, settle herself on one of the colourful plastic chairs and order a pho soup and/or some fresh summer rolls. Her daughters love the dumpling outlets of the Taiwanese Din Tai Fung chain, along with the Shabestan Persian restaurant by the Singapore River.

“I tell our girls frequently that it’s not totally normal to stroll through a nature reserve by day and then enjoy an amazing ballet at the Esplanade in the evening,” Schirin explains. “They don’t know any different: they think the whole world has all the vast range of experiences that we have here in Singapore.”

There are regular visits home, too, of course – Schirin’s father, who is originally from Iran and now lives in Bonn, gets the whole extended family together every year. And she enjoys ‘going home’, even if her true homeland may now be elsewhere. With her multicultural roots, her British husband and their two Singapore-born daughters, Schirin fits perfectly into this ethnically diverse city. And the question of a return to Europe is long off the agenda. “We’ll go back in winter,” she laughs. She knows full well: in Singapore, that season can be a long time coming…