Food has traditionally been the heart of Chinese culture. Eating meals together with families is as much a daily routine as a domestic ritual. Kitchens, therefore, are not only a mundane space necessitated by cooking and eating that is merely functional, but also the physical and emotional nexus of a household, that brings people together and encourages gatherings.
Accordingly, when designing the fit-out for this apartment, we decided to place the kitchen of the center of circulation routes as well as the focal point of family gathering, in order to use the dining table as an anchor point where different daily activities of the family members cross paths.
However, the biggest challenge from the client, a young working professional couple, is that the apartment only has a net floor area of 36 m² , and yet has to accommodate not only themselves, but also their parents who may come to visit occasionally as well as their expected child.
Therefore we strive to create a design that can fulfill different needs in various scenarios by giving multiple functions to a single space. Making some of the furniture and building components operable, the resulting design attempts to achieve the maximum usability and flexibility of spaces.
