Apartment’s feng shui screens and Gen Z green, red and mustard yellow accents evoke old Hong Kong, from trams to the Jumbo floating restaurant

From the view of the now-closed Jumbo floating restaurant to the raw brick tiles and textured paint that remind property owner Lucas Sam Si-long of his grandmother’s home, the word that best describes his one-bedroom, 1,070 sq ft (99 square metre) flat in Ap Lei Chau is nostalgic.

“It’s not retro – I don’t like that word,” says its designer, JJ Acuna of JJ Acuna / Bespoke Studio. “It takes those little bits and pieces we have in our memories, but it’s not pastiche or clichéd. It’s nostalgic, but it’s very now.”

The flat is the second project Acuna and Sam have worked on together; the first – Sam’s Happy Valley coffee shop, Coffeelin – also has a nostalgic vibe. In a nod to the Milan origin of the Griso coffee served inside, Acuna gave it a dark green exterior, vintage mirrors and wriggly wall graphics in the Memphis Milano style.

Italian elements can also be found in the flat, notably in the lighting. But there are also influences from England, where Sam went to school, and old Hong Kong. The Jumbo, for example, influenced the colour scheme in the living area: mustard, burgundy and a sofa in that particular shade of dark green that pops up all over the city, from trams to the pagoda roofs of the iconic floating restaurant.

“Pantone has even given it a name: HK Tram Green,” Acuna says. “Green is also the colour of Generation Z – we use it in a lot of our designs.”

Other elements were the result of a consultation with feng shui designer Thierry Chow Yik-tung.