How a Hong Kong interior designer gave a family home a New York-style loft interior
- Peter Lampard of DEFT added warmth to the flat’s raw, utilitarian aesthetic with rounded edges and natural materials
- Originally two units, the formerly lacklustre apartments were given a new lease of life
With its raw, utilitarian aesthetic, industrial-style interior decor has long appealed to discerning urbanites, who prefer concrete to chintz. Hong Kong couple Elena and Jamie McAdam are no exception and when they commissioned Peter Lampard, architect and co-founder of Design Eight Five Two (DEFT), to help transform their newly acquired home on the eastern side of Hong Kong Island, this was the design concept they had in mind.
“‘Industrial’ is a buzzword but the challenge is finding out what that means for each client and how to translate that into their home,” says Lampard. “Elena and Jamie have a young son and a baby so my thinking was ‘yes’ to industrial, particularly as that would make reference to the location’s heritage, but not to the point of being cold, unfriendly or unsafe for children.”
The property to be renovated comprised two units that the couple planned to combine. With myriad partition walls, it was initially hard to appreciate the potential, but once Lampard had reduced it to a bare shell, the beauty of the 2,200 sq ft space shone through. With ceilings almost four metres high and an almost ridiculous amount of natural light, the formerly lacklustre flats suddenly had a new lease of life – and that was without any interior decoration.
“The apartment has a very square footplate and it was fantastic to open it up and see it as one vast space,” he says.
You think the concrete is going to be cold but we added underfloor heating so it’s a pleasant surprise when you walk on it with bare feet
Lampard drew on traditional industrial elements to create the New York loft vibe the McAdams were hankering after but modified them to fit the young family’s needs. He installed banks of black cast-iron-framed windows with low-emission double glazing, and used a resilient, waterproof coating on the hand-plastered Marmorino walls so they could withstand greasy little fingerprints.
He kept the living and dining areas open plan, adding a front kitchen concealed behind a two-metre sliding panel clad in black moulded-concrete. A main, more heavy-duty kitchen lies behind it along with a den-cum-guest room, two bedrooms with en suite bathrooms and the domestic helper’s quarters. He also laid polished concrete floors throughout.