How two Hong Kong flats became one huge, hi-spec home

Needing a substantial home for a blended family of six, Ben Wong Hiu-fei knew he had found the “bones” in two identical 1,800 sq ft apartments, one on top of the other.

Both units were to be gutted and their rooms realigned to create four bedrooms, five-and-a-half bathrooms, and a shrine room. Living areas would become bed­rooms; the kitchen, bathrooms and utility zones transplanted and, of course, the two units joined. It helped that there was only one unit per floor in this building, meaning no neighbours.

Wong didn’t want the 2.9-metre ceilings lowered, so Ho had to create wall cavities to take plumbing, electrical conduits and drainage pipes to places they were never intended to be. Bulkheads were necessary for the ducted air conditioning system, and since their positioning would ultimately affect the spatial arrangement, this part of the process was critical to the entire reno­vation. “It involved a lot of coordination with the engineer, and taking his proposals back to the client to discuss his priorities,” Ho says.

Having specified a grand “arrival” to the home, Ho took Wong to the New Territories, where a remote factory stocks marble from all around the world. Inspired by the colour of the sea in Portugal, the most recent of the international locations where he has lived, Wong chose an azure blue marble from Brazil.

Originally cut as a single block, it was sliced for transport into four slabs and pieced together using a mirror-format, book-match technique, on the double height, five-metre-tall wall behind the staircase linking the two floors.