The Gift Box

It's a three-bedroom residence in Taipei. As it is on a lower floor, the original layout is not ideal for letting in natural light. In addition, the old living-room balcony has been pushed out, leaving a beam across the living room. For this reason, the structure, though impossible to modify, is transformed by using the concept of “open the gift box”so as to resolve the visual discomfort.

The ceiling and the floor feature grey tones, and with a white facade, delicately wrap up the space like double-layer wrapping paper, using light wood-vein materials as a finishing touch. It looks simple but actually accentuates how bright and clean the space is, giving a delight of both the modern and the classic. With gentle and powerful design concept, it injects a clean, pure and quiet positive energy into every space.

At the entryway, the streamlined ceiling, symbolizing the ribbon for a gift box, is also an eye-catching visual highlight, allowing the transparent, open design to start something elegant and exciting.

In planning the flow, the designer makes the best of the square footage. The transparent glass brick wall acts as a screen between the kitchen and the living-dining room, and the two-way natural light between the living room and the kitchen is intertwined in the dining area. The dining area, put aside on the aisle in the common space, deliberately creates a beautiful atmosphere of dining amid light and shadow.

Mellow lines, which go from such common areas as the living room and dining room and extend to the bedrooms, integrate and trim all the beams and columns in the space, ingeniously resolving the sharp edges and corners of cabinets and the columns.

The bedroom is ingeniously designed with embedded LED linear lights that play against the elegant two-tone wall. The curves proceed with the imagery of opening a gift box, accurately layering the space and delicately displaying the visual transformation between day and night.