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A fashionable boutique hotel in Italy was the starting point for the transformation of a gloomy, stifling house into a modern, streamlined home. John and Kate Padget-Koh (originally from Singapore and Britain, respectively) were inspired to go house-hunting after staying at the Continentale, an ultra-chic fashion hotel in Florence. Kate fell in love with the 1960s building and its design ethos: 'This is our next house,' she informed her husband.

On their return to Hong Kong, the couple looked in vain for months to find somewhere that had the potential to display the design, humour and sense of intimacy the Padget-Kohs had experienced at the Continentale. 'Then we found the perfect place in Clearwater Bay. It was ideal for my plan.' The only catch was the condition of the place: 'What a dump!' So Kate called architect Edward Billson of MAP (Metropolitan Architecture & Planning, tel: 2877 9282), who had worked on a previous property for them.

'Ed knows our taste well,' Kate says,'and somehow managed to sense and embrace our shift in genre from open in our first home to intimate in this one.'

Billson suggested a major overhaul to turn the 3,500 sq ft dark, enclosed space into an airy, light-filled environment with easy access to the exterior spaces. 'The house is on the end of a row of six houses and there was a portion of the site to the south that was not being used effectively,' he says.

To create a design scheme that incorporated light, space, scale, drama and colour, Billson first took the space back to basics. A big challenge was the fact the house is on a slope and the interior spans four main levels, each divided by a 1.45-metre height difference between front and back. 'It is one module at the front and one module at the back, separated by the staircase,' he explains. 'It makes it difficult to run it together as one area.'

He achieved continuity by opening up the house at the front, back and side. 'The advantage of being on the end was that you don't have another house plugged on to you. Also, this house is only connected by about 25 per cent of its perimeter; it feels like a 100 per cent detached house.'