With over 20 years of experience in private residential construction, Nic & Wes Builders is a Design & Build firm that originated from the founders’ passion, which became their professional vocation and eventually evolved into a sustainable business of creating dream homes in a unique way.
Everything started when the two founders, Brian Kow and his wife Jude, decided to build their home for their own family. During this challenging journey, they discovered the various problems of procuring the right architect, designer, engineer, and suppliers for their project.
Brian Kow & Jude Kow
Founders of Nic & Wes Builders
They quickly understood that coordinating a complex team such as this one is a laborious task with stressful ups and downs, from miscommunications and disagreements to unforeseen hiccups and delays in every stage of the building process.
Learning from their own experience, they came up with an ingenious streamlined framework that transforms the complicated building journey into a simple process, from ideation to designing, building, and adding final touches to the house.
With their simplified framework, the complicated building process becomes a smooth, dynamic, and enjoyable collaboration between all the parties involved. With this, Nic & Wes Builders managed to build numerous dream homes with great characteristics and unique designs that create value, befitting of a Lifestyle Home. This dedicated team focuses on achieving new breakthroughs, pushing the limits of versatility and creativity, and their portfolio includes an impressive collection of vintage, resort-style, and ultra-modern homes.
Besides their close-knit “homeowner – builder – architect – engineer – designer – suppliers” ecosystem, they have a strong team of highly-trained specialists to transform the designs into reality. Some of these members are industry veterans who have been a part of the firm since the beginning.
Nic & Wes’ mission is to focus less on house and more on home. For them, it is extremely important to understand what the family truly wants and needs. Even though each house is uniquely tailored to the client’s needs and wishes, there are certain prominent traits that became their signature style for every Lifestyle Home they build: luxurious yet homely design with an abundance of natural materials and a rich interplay of colours, textures, and patterns to create an inspiring, intimate, and functional living environment.
Nic & Wes Builders understands that a home needs to embrace the different characteristics of the family members living under the same roof and provide a befitting space for each of them. Therefore, every home they build offers beautiful, conducive, and versatile living areas suitable for family gatherings, entertaining, and private “me time”. Water is always present in their creations, serving both the aesthetic and sustainable roles within the ecosystem of a house.
Balinese Elegance by Nic & Wes Builders
Nic & Wes’ rich and diverse Lifestyle Home portfolio includes an eclectic mix of themed homes from tropical and modern, to nostalgic and European. The team revels and excels in the flexibility of styles while tailoring each house to fit the definition of home of each client and fulfilling all the spatial and functional requirements.
A good example is this spacious living room, finished with luxurious materials and carefully planned decor in contrasting hues to create an elegant look with visual impact and a welcoming vibe. The common spaces in this house (the living room and the dining room in the back) communicate with each other, both opening onto a refreshing interior garden through immaculate glazings. This fluid space offers a lot of opportunities for the family to relax and reconnect after a hard day, as well as for entertaining guests.
Black & White Nolstagia by Nic & Wes Builders
With the rise in demand for nostalgic-themed homes such as colonial black and white and Peranakan styles which involve more specific detailing, Nic & Wes have showcased their finesse again and again in their unique way of putting a contemporary spin on their nostalgic-themed Lifestyle Home projects to cater to present-day living.
Façade Design by Nic & Wes Builders
Nic & Wes is also well-known for their intricate and functional façade designs, such as this exquisite laser-cut element that conceals the windows aesthetically, breaking the norm of simply using an austere flat wall. Besides the visual appeal, this gorgeous façade feature also doubles up as a shield from the sun and prying eyes.
This next showcase is a stylish modern kitchen with flawless execution. The super clean lines and the classy monochromatic palette accentuates the elegance of this opulent kitchen, while the masterfully installed glazings throughout the space provide an abundance of natural light and ventilation while allowing the residents and guests to admire the refreshing garden and pool outside.
Incorporating natural elements via a private garden to create a more harmonious living environment is a key feature of Nic & Wes’ creations. Here we see a wonderful interior garden consisting of verdant greenery, a water pond, and a mesmerising stone wall with a mini waterfall that introduces the soothing sound of falling water.
The convivial atmosphere of Nic & Wes’ signature garden design is optimized to receive the right amount of natural light, the warmth of the sun, and the cool evening breeze… making it the perfect spot to relax and unwind while enjoying a cup of tea or wine with your family and friends. Each garden designed by Nic & Wes Builders has a different character carefully tailored to the homeowner’s tastes and preferences, but they all play the same role as the little slice of heaven on earth, like a luxurious resort hidden away from curious eyes. The creative and unique combination of natural materials, luscious greenery, and water elements add a fresh perspective to every single home while fulfilling the functional requirements.
The generous use of water can also be seen in this design – an elongated blue azure pool complemented by graceful plants, artistically carved natural stones, and high-quality wooden decking to create an alluring look and feel, as well as mini waterfalls to stimulate the auditory sense while offering a calming vibe.
Besides the usual living spaces, Nic & Wes Builders also strives to showcase their creativity and style in the most obscure areas, such as this private nest on the upper terrace of a home. The brilliant meld of water, wood, plants and the delightful gazebo that levitates on water evokes the vibe of a quaint little Chinese tea house hidden in a secret lake haven, away from all the worldly distractions and troubles.
Besides creating the right style and ambience for the common areas, the team is also very meticulous with every detail of the private spaces, such as this extravagant and relaxing bathroom, which is enlivened by a generous amount of natural light, combined with warm artificial light to enhance the overall atmosphere, as well as plants behind the gorgeous stone wall to provide better ventilation and privacy.
With Nic & Wes builders, every dream home they build is a work of art, a home with a distinct character and an interesting story behind it, that also fulfils a substantial amount of spatial and functional requirements while showcasing the owner’s unique personality and serving their everyday needs. As the co-founder, Brian Kow, always emphasises, “We strive to incorporate as much if not all our client’s wish list into their homes to bring their idea of the meaning of home to life. To us, it isn’t just a business, but each home is a piece of art that we take pride in. As a builder, we take the responsibility to literally bring to life the ideation of wishes and dreams formulated by the client. We don’t just simply build houses — we tailor a family’s lifestyle and translate it into each room that in unison creates a Lifestyle Home that pulls a family together to enjoy.”
