Hong Kong SAR, China
Chang Residence
program:
Private Residence
site:
83 Robinson Road
size:
800 sqm
budget:
withheld @ owner’s request
completion date:
2006

publication:
Post Magazine (09/2007)
ELLE (07/2007)
Jessica (06/2009)
SCMP Post Magazine_Sep09_Sum of its parts
ELLE (07/2007)
Jessica (06/2009)SCMP Post Magazine_Sep09_Sum of its parts
Dear Mies,
At first glance, your architecture seemed to create universal spaces for a generic condition. It is precisely,however, the careful attention to details and the sense of materiality set your projects apart from thousands that followed or copied.
We are entrusted to design a 1,000sf apartment renovation and the concept of our project is to engage the dialogue between materiality, space, and details.
-A glass box (one of your most preferred materials!), toned with various degree of reflectivity, defined the bedroom and the living room. We also designed a 360 degree pivoting TV on it so that the occupant can watch it from either the living or bedroom side. Space is a plastic and fluid thing to us. Which side is public? Which side is private? We wonder?
-A storage unit, cladded in book-matched Tineo wood, extended from the entrance vestibule through the dining area into the study area. It was being treated as one “elongated room.” We then installed a 2.2M X 2.8M sliding blackboard to separate the study from
the dining the occupant wanted privacy. We observed that the blackboard provided endless entertainment for the guests after the occupants’ first house-warming party. The space in front of the blackboard becomes a performance stage instead of a con-
ventional dining room.
-A gray traventine counter top extended from the bedroom into the bathroom, then turn into a vertical wall cladding surface to define the bathroom, smoked glass door acted as separation. The oval shape bathtub in this space, as you can see on the plan, formed the only non-rectilinear form in the apartment and its curved wall is cladded by stainless steel panels.(perhaps a happy coincident with your Ulrich Lange House Project?)
Towards the end of the design process, we came to realize that we are making architecture down to the basics: We were interested to explore how each material changes and re-defines space because of its inherent nature. As one of your contemporaries put it:

Thank you (both) for teaching us so much





