Architect gives his Hong Kong apartment eco-friendly makeover
A champion of green living, architect Kevin Chu sets an example in his own home by using recycled or upcycled materials
When Kevin Chu Yau-wing and his Italian wife, Giulia Dibonaventura, bought and renovated a flat in Discovery Bay on Hong Kong’s Lantau Island in 2015, they decided it should be as eco-friendly as possible. The decision came naturally: Chu is the founder of COC Design, an architecture firm that specialises in sustainable design.
“In Hong Kong, when a flat is nice looking, it is only nice looking – there isn’t much environmental consciousness,” he says. “I wanted to prove you could have both.”
Chu believed that could be achieved without a massive overhaul of the 1,293 sq ft, three-bedroom flat, which comes with a roof terrace overlooking Discovery Bay’s harbour. He and Dibonaventura outfitted the space with furniture and finishings made from recycled or upcycled materials.
“There’s nothing real here – it’s all artificial,” says Chu, of the living room.
All the floor and wall tiles in the flat are made from recycled particle porcelain – a fancy name for construction waste that has been ground down and compressed into a tile, with a digitally printed texture on top.
“The surface of these tiles is very solid, not porous like stone,” he says. That means they won’t be damaged by moisture or crack with changes in temperature and humidity.