Project Overview

This project, as a renovation of a western-style flat located in the edge of Shanghai’s central area, takes nature, blankness, and fun as the design core. Through ingenious window arrangement for landscape framing, sharp contrast in spatial dimension, as well as balance between blankness and display to optimize spatial relationships, it improves both of space utilization and visual appeal to create a modern urban flat as exquisite as an art gallery, offering occupants a relaxing, tranquil, and artistic residence.

Organisation

ease architects

Team

Meng Jiang, Zeyuan Qian

Project Brief

With the development of the economy and the rise of high-density tower-type residences, western-style flats in the edge of Shanghai’s central area have gradually faded from the mainstream market. Against the backdrop of urban renewal currently, the design team has undertaken the renovation of a western-style flat built in 2000.

The flat with brick-and-concrete composite construction fails to support extensive modification, and its outdated kitchen & dining room are extremely narrow. To address that, this project, while retaining existing advantages including north-south orientation, rectangular floor plan, and proximity to nature, frames outdoor landscapes through windows to perfectly fuse the interior decor with the nature outside, and innovates an open design to significantly optimize spatial relationships, creating a serene, stylish modern urban flat with a sense of spaciousness.

Project Innovation/Need

This project cleverly marries functionality with aesthetics.
The northwest side features the optimal view, which, as the result, serves as a leisure area; the linear kitchen along the wall connects the leisure area and the living room dining room combo, bringing in more natural light into the interior space and effortlessly fusing the interior decor with the nature outside.

By expanding the corridor on the east side to increase the viewing angle, the project also integrates landscapes outside the windows of the study room into the interior. Fixed storage cabinets are only applied to the kitchen and master bedroom, resulting in a stunning contrast between centralized storage areas and other relatively empty functional areas. This adds a sense of spaciousness, contributing to an engaging and comfortable living experience.

The heavily used blankness provides an ideal background for furniture and paintings, with landscapes viewed from windows blending into the space as if they were paintings, whereby to improve visual layering. In addition, the corridor on the east side is equipped with rails and spotlights to resemble a small gallery, further strengthening the overall artistic atmosphere.

Design Challenge

The biggest challenge was how to achieve optimal outcomes with low costs in a limited space.

To bring in maximum natural light and fuse the interior decor with the nature outside, the design team has employed strategies such as blankness and contrast in spatial dimension to enhance spatial openness, avoiding visual obstruction.

By only applying fixed storage cabinets to the kitchen and master bedroom, the project achieves centralized storage in small areas, giving a sense of spaciousness with no compromise on storage space.

It skillfully uses furniture, paintings, as well as the corridor resembling a gallery, breaking away from monotony caused by heavily used blankness.
Moreover, the team has adopts split-type air conditioners to minimize ceiling modification, while utilizing second-hand wood flooring & furniture and decreasing the number of custom-built cabinets to effectively reduce costs.

Sustainability

The project partially retains the original architectural structure to eliminate the need for extensive demolition and reconstruction, which minimizes the generation of construction waste.

The application of recycled solid wood flooring reduces the consumption of natural resources.

Split-type air conditioners instead of a central air conditioning system facilitate less ceiling modification to decrease material waste, while also enabling independent control to enhance energy efficiency and lower energy consumption.

The project uses fewer custom-built cabinets, as well as second-hand furniture, environmentally friendly and economical. This approach declines waste generation to advance sustainable development, and ensures high flexibility so that occupants can freely adjust layout as needed.