The view, through an aluminium window frame, is of foamy cascades tumbling from Niagara Falls. Nearby, nine red-crested chickens roost among scholars' rocks. Overhead is a metal space dock that would not look out of place beside the Starship Enterprise. To the side is a pretty floral canvas that, on closer inspection, contains the sentiment 'Allwordsf***'.
Welcome to the world of William Lim, an architect and art collector who has created a private gallery exhibiting his own paintings, sculptures and installations, as well as the work of others, some of them household names. Among the 30-odd pieces scattered around the 3,500 sq ft loft in Wong Chuk Hang are mainland artist Ai Weiwei's Marble Plate, a paperweight by Japan's polka-dot princess, Yayoi Kusama, and Briton Julian Opie's minimalist portrait of his assistant.
Lim, managing director of CL3 Architects - the firm behind EAST in Taikoo Shing and Hotel Icon in Tsim Sha Tsui - also shows off the work of his 26-year-old son, Kevin, who, like his father, studied architecture at Cornell University in the United States.
'I originally bought this space to use as my own art studio and to show my collection and entertain,' says Lim. 'But it will soon become my son's work studio.'
One corner of the space - housed inside an industrial building with a watch factory next door and printing companies on other floors - will be the office of OpenUU, established by Kevin and fellow Cornell architecture graduates Eddy Man Kim and Edward Yujoong Kim.
The trio were the brains behind the loft's defining structure - a four-sided open rectangular shelving unit that artfully breaks up the space while creating a semi-enclosed 'room' of about 500 sq ft within.