Design & Interiors

The world’s largest library reading space, in the Beijing City Library in China’s capital, was inspired by nature and designed to be something of a social space. Photo: Yumeng Zhu

Library or forest? World’s biggest library reading space, in Beijing, is both

The world’s largest library reading space, housed by the Beijing City Library in China’s capital, was inspired by nature – think rice paddies, a river and trees – and designed to be something of a social space.

16 Mar 2024 - 1:15PM
The high-rise apartment in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong, designed by MT Design makes use of avocado as the primary colour, as seen in the faux wainscot (above) in the dining room, and in the kitchen behind. Photo: Samson Lau

Soothing avocado green, French simplicity in this Hong Kong home’s makeover

A Hong Kong-based client’s favourite colour shade was not only on trend, it was also the perfect hue to turn her 520 sq ft Tsuen Wan flat into a relaxing sanctuary.

10 Mar 2024 - 11:15AM
A 510 sq ft retirement apartment in Hong Kong’s Tai Hang neighbourhood has been given a Bauhaus-inspired renovation that will allow its mature occupants to age in place – and comfort. Photo: Michael Perini

‘A perfect retirement home’: 510 sq ft Hong Kong apartment with Bauhaus form

This 510 sq ft retirement apartment in Hong Kong’s Tai Hang neighbourhood has been given a Bauhaus-inspired renovation that will allow its elderly occupants to age in place – and comfort.

29 Feb 2024 - 11:21AM
The living room of a Sai Kung village house designed by Hintegro. A design journalist reflects on the house in Hong Kong she called home for 20 years, and how it evolved along with her changing circumstances. Photo: Desmond Chan

How a design journalist’s Hong Kong village house evolved over 20 years

A design journalist reflects on the house in a village in Hong Kong’s Sai Kung district she called home for 20 years, and how the homes she wrote about influenced numerous upgrades to its interiors.

22 Feb 2024 - 1:06PM
The Blue, in Taipei, by Spheron Architects. Its designers talk about conceiving the hotel according to Emotionalist principles they set out in a manifesto that calls for architecture to counter an “ever-digitising world” where they fear humans are losing control. Photo: Yu Zhi Lin

When the covers came off The Blue hotel, Taipei ‘paused for a moment’

Pair whose focus is the need for an architecture that responds to a world being manipulated by AI, and for Emotional cities not Smart cities, put their ideas into practice in design of The Blue in Taipei.

19 Feb 2024 - 9:39AM
Block C jail cells at Victoria Road Detention Centre Site in Pokfulam. 14DEC23 SCMP / Jonathan Wong

Now a Hong Kong university campus, its darker past is of war and prisoners

Nestled in verdant Pok Fu Lam, the University of Chicago’s Hong Kong campus tells the story of the city’s wartime defeat to the Japanese and of its buildings’ subsequent occupants: prisoners.

19 Feb 2024 - 11:37AM
The Legend apartment was designed by Edge Design Institute. Photo: Eugene Chan

The outdoors is the artwork in a Hong Kong home with stunning green views

Harbour views are prized in Hong Kong, but a renovation of a flat with huge windows makes the most of its vistas of verdant hillsides to create a restful interior with notes of wood and stone.

12 Feb 2024 - 1:15PM
Interior designer Jocelyn Liipfert Lam on the sofa she designed and Hardwood HK made for the home in South Lantau. Photo: Common Studio

Artist’s line drawing inspires Hong Kong home design with a Balinese vibe

A Hong Kong village house with a Balinese vibe brings Scandinavian, Moroccan and Japanese elements together seamlessly – and it all started with a single-line drawing.

28 Jan 2024 - 11:15AM
Once dark and heavy, this Hong Kong house is now a coastal-inspired bright and breezy home for a family of four. Photo: Jonathan Leijonhufvud

From ‘dark and heavy’ to light and airy: Hong Kong seaside house transformed

Renovation of a seaside house for a family of four gives it a coastal vibe – think whitewashed walls, a timber staircase that funnels light down, and stone floors that ‘don’t show marks or pet hair’.

21 Jan 2024 - 11:15AM
The living room of the triplex apartment in Hong Kong’s Mid-Levels designed in Nordic style by hoo. The sofa came from Poliform, the armchair and floor lamp from Gubi and the handmade Gear concrete coffee table from Norr11. Photo: hoo

3 floors, balcony, terrace – Nordic look makes the most of Hong Kong flat

A triplex apartment in Hong Kong’s Mid-Levels offered plenty of space to play with, but its slim footprint meant adopting a simple Nordic design.

14 Jan 2024 - 11:15AM
The living room of an apartment in Hong Kong’s Mid-levels, designed by Amy Butler. What started out as a minor update evolved into a full-blown renovation that reflects the homeowner’s tastes and personality. Photo: Dela Peri John David Adecer

White-on-white minimalist Hong Kong flat is homeowner’s dream living space

A minor update to an apartment in Hong Kong’s Mid-Levels turned into a full-blown renovation. The results reflect the homeowner’s tastes and spin maximum satisfaction from a minimalist aesthetic.

6 Jan 2024 - 11:15AM
Five tree-like sculptural columns in the sanctuary of Union Church in Hong Kong’s Mid-Levels are a nod to the church’s neo-Gothic look in the 19th century. Photo: Lusher Photography

Warm wood, tree-like columns – new Union Church connected to nature and past

The new Union Church has been designed to honour the congregation’s 180-year history in Hong Kong. Tree-like structural columns support a vaulted ceiling and the airy space is filled with natural light.

1 Jan 2024 - 1:15PM
The kitchen space is organised around a central island. Stylist: Flavia Markovits. Photo: Eugene Chan

He made a minimalist, airy 500 sq ft Hong Kong flat that ‘tells a story’

Architect Georges Hung and his wife lived for three months in their Discovery Bay home before deciding how to renovate it. He turned the apartment from cramped and boxy into an open, airy space.

8 Dec 2023 - 12:45PM
Marisa Yiu, Design Trust co-founder, at Hamilton Street Rest Garden, in Yau Tsim Mong in Hong Kong. Design Trust Futures Studio has dotted micro-parks across Hong Kong with one goal in mind: creating communities. Photo: Design Trust

Creating communities in Hong Kong is ‘maddening and fun’: meet Marisa Yiu

Design Trust Futures Studio has dotted micro-parks across Hong Kong with one goal in mind: creating communities. We meet Marisa Yiu, its tireless champion.

3 Dec 2023 - 11:15AM
The Perry family’s living room. Styling: Flavia Markovits. Photo: Eugene Chan

Light flows through a family home with enlarged windows, glass balustrades

A Hong Kong interior designer tapped her employees to turn the family’s three-storey private villa in Sai Kung into a colourful, light-filled home whose indoor and outdoor areas seamlessly connect.

25 Nov 2023 - 1:40PM
Cardin Chan is general manager of Tetra Neon Exchange, which rescues and preserves Hong Kong’s disappearing neon signs. She reveals how the Wufeng Lin Family Mansion in Taiwan changed her life. Photo: Courtesy of Cardin Chan

She saves Hong Kong’s neon signs, but it was in Taiwan her eyes were opened

Cardin Chan, general manager of Tetra Neon Exchange, which rescues and preserves Hong Kong’s disappearing neon signs, reveals how the Wufeng Lin Family Mansion in Taiwan changed her life.

22 Nov 2023 - 5:39PM
The Pedder Building’s The Pedder Arcade. Photo: Akita Daisuke

Low-key and shopping rarely go together in Hong Kong. They do here

Hong Kong is not lacking in shopping centres, but the latest, The Pedder Arcade, is unlike any other. On the fifth floor of the Pedder Building in Central, it is the passion project of Mark Cho.

18 Nov 2023 - 7:34AM
The art-filled staircase in the home of Konstantin Bessmertny and his wife, Gala, in Macau. Styling: Flavia Markovitz. Photo: Eugene Chan

A blank canvas: how an unlovely Macau house became a whimsical art cave

Artist Konstantin Bessmertny and his concert pianist wife Gala’s home in Coloane, Macau, which they first saw in 2004, is a testament to marital harmony – part art studio, part cosy retreat.

11 Nov 2023 - 11:15AM
Alexander Lamont’s Mercury Gold Etoile panels in the ballroom at the Fullerton Ocean Park Hong Kong. Photo: Alexander Lamont

‘I’m trying to create a raw luxury’: designer on his ‘sumptuous minimalism’

Alexander Lamont’s Bangkok showroom is testament to the British designer’s approach of transforming once ‘bloody and smelly’ materials into ultimate and absolute luxury.

3 Nov 2023 - 12:45PM
Lim Lim the poodle looks at home on a Giobagnara coffee table from Mohd in a Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong flat designed by Wonder Wonder. Photo: Eugene Chan

From Eames chair to Le Corbusier lamp, apartment fit-out is designer led

From an Eames dining chair to a Le Corbusier lamp, nothing but the crėme de la crėme of high-end designer items were good enough for the Hong Kong high-rise home of two discerning creatives.

27 Oct 2023 - 12:45PM