parallel zones – Revisited

When Taiwanese interior design practice KC Design Studio was commissioned by a young couple with a toddler to renovate an apartment in the north of Taiwan where they were settling down after living abroad for many years, their goal was to create a contemporary environment of comfort and convenience that also reflected the couple’s distinct aesthetic sensibilities. The result is an elegantly idiosyncratic apartment that harmoniously combines the husband’s preference for modernist design and the wife’s fondness of natural materials, that merge effortlessly.

The devil is the detail and there is so much to take in. The new layout divides the apartment into two parallel zones, a public section centred on an open-plan living and dining area that opens up to a balcony, and the family’s private quarters which comprise a master bedroom and bathroom, a dressing room and a bedroom for the couple’s child. Low-hanging beams and pipes that inconveniently transverse the ceiling throughout the apartment had to be more creatively dealt with by creating concave ceiling panels that smoothly arch between the steel beams creating a cellar-like ambience.

A diverse palette of natural materials is harmoniously weaved together by a modernist aesthetic of clean-cut lines and minimalist trimmings and complemented by a sparse selection of sleek light fittings in a black finish and modern furniture pieces that reflect both the husband’s less-is-more sensibility and the wife’s fondness for natural materials. Can I get an AMEN up in here!