Gender differences are allowed to shine in one couple's apartment, where minimalism is definitely not the order of the day.
East meets west in many Hong Kong flats, but in the home of Alvin and Abby Leung it is girl meets boy.
'This was my concept for the apartment,' Alvin says, adding that it allows his wife's touches 'to really stand out'. The meticulously designed 2,000-square-foot Mid-Levels home, replete with unique features, is an eclectic architectural incarnation of yin and yang.
Achieving the look the Leungs desired was not a speedy process. 'The renovations took a year,' Leung says, 'but then I'm a perfectionist.' In that time, Leung worked with Ting Ngai Decoration & Engineering (tel: 9166 8690) to remove walls, rip up the floor and tear down the ceiling. 'Nothing was left except five columns and the supporting beams you find in older homes,' Leung says, 'and I spent a lot of time figuring out how to hide them.'
Now seamlessly absorbed into the flat's new bones, the columns afford a series of straight, clean angles that define the open-plan layout of the two-bedroom, two-bathroom flat. The front door leads into an airy expanse that is dominated by an enormous kitchen theatrically surrounded by a wall of glass.
The 'garden' room, with a turtle pond and slim terrace, is the first space that greets entrants. This flows directly into a television room that can be transformed into a home theatre by lowering a blind and black-out screen over a large picture window. To the right of this space are the large kitchen and dining room, off which is a short hallway that connects the living room with family quarters and a guest bathroom.