Project Overview

The retirement house is designed neat and concise with its white palette. Decorated by wood and stone materials, the space offers an organic atmosphere for the owner to relax and stay away from the bustle and hustle of city life.

Organisation

CHINYU Design C0., LTD

Team

LAI SHAO YU
GAO DUN RUEI

Project Brief

With linear structure applied onto the ceiling, the space is serene, bright and tidy with a set-back living room and an expanded balcony to push the visual perception outwards to connect to the environment.

The 30-year-old, high-rise building, had problems of water leakage, exposed concrete structure, and fragile veneer storeys found during reconstruction. The designer renovates the space by reinforcing the structure, reinterpreting the ideal living space with a modern simplistic style.

Project Innovation/Need

From the entrance, one can see the slightly high-rise wooden flooring add an organic vibe to the atmosphere. The left side of the floating storage cabinets separate the dining room and the kitchen with its squarish shape, completing a functional layout effortlessly. Furthermore, the mirror embedded beside the cabinets and the recessed space below them provide a spatial depth to reduce the sense of stifling. The division of the living and the study connects to the dining area, creating a horizontal space, intersecting with the vertical corridor.

Since the owner loves gardening, planting, and always enjoys the tranquility of nature, the designer sets back the living room to create a bigger space for the balcony. The flooring material extends to the outdoors, blurring the airtight window division between the interior and the exterior. Instead of using the traditional style, the sliding floor-to-ceiling windows are applied to allow flexibility, better connection, ventilation, and more sunlight to travel in. The stone basin with wooden veneers and lattices on the ceiling and the floor, establish a natural warmth.

Design Challenge

The common area is divided through use of cabinets echoing the big beams above. The light gray stone TV wall in the front contrasts with a bright white cabinet at the back, creating a proper transition of two different areas. The overall white palette of the common area glows faintly under the natural sunlight. The recessed parts of the shelving is finished with stone effect coating, adding to a better spatial depth. Besides the storage function, the study is also decorated by the rounded corners, curved lines, and greenery to establish a multilayer, livelier space.

Sustainability

The whole space is equipped with big-size windows to introduce more lighting to the open-plan common area, boosting as well the ventilation. The heavy-duty wooden flooring creates an organic warmth but also makes the space easier to clean and use, reducing chances to replace/repair the material. A modern and concise design technique provides flexibility of the space, wishing to achieve the possibility of a sustainable use.