A Sensitive Renovation in Taipei

In the old part of the gleaming capital, horizontal studio transformed the client’s decades-old childhood home into a contemporary space with reverence for the family’s shared memories. We spoke to the team at horizontal about the project

How did you first meet the client?

We renovated an older house for a friend of the client’s. After the client visited that home, she contacted us about planning a long-awaited renovation for her own family’s house.

Can you tell us about them and their lifestyle?

The client is a senior lecturer in the finance industry with a vast collection of books. She has two daughters, with one having just graduated from an art college and the other being still in college. The client grew up in this house, and while elder family members have since left to move back to their ancestral home, there was a hope that the house would retain the memories they cherish after the renovation.

How did you approach the project?

We preserved the exposed cement walls and the uneven beams and columns. Based on the positions of the beams and columns, we divided the floor plan into the public areas of the living room and kitchen, and the private areas of the workspace and bedrooms.

We subtly retained traces of the old house, such as a small hole in the kitchen connecting to a nostalgic window grille from the exterior of the old house. On one side of the columns in the dining room, we kept the original tiles, a reminder of the owner’s history with the house.

The old windowsills extend from the living room to the bedroom, now with different functions after the renovation. These preserved elements allow the renovated house to still exhibit traces of its past.

How large is the house, and is there anything unique about it?

The house has an interior area of approximately 200 square metres, with the entrance now transformed into an outdoor foyer. There are now four bedrooms, a living and dining area, a study, a kitchen, two bathrooms and a dressing room.

It’s located in a quiet alley in the heart of Taipei City, featuring period windowsills and street views of the area we call Old Taipei.

Tell us about the material choices.

The client’s furniture and collectibles have impacted the choice of materials. Simple solid wood flooring, paired with mineral paint on the exposed and uneven walls, creates a serene texture, allowing the collectibles and furniture to become the focal points. Tiles with green plant patterns, along with furniture left behind by the client’s father, imbue the house with stories from the past.

Do you have a favourite element or design detail?

The bedroom adjacent to the living room and the workspace is for one of the daughters, as she always wants to be close to her family. To enhance emotional connections, the room has two doors and a cat door. The circular arch is fractured at its highest point, forming an incomplete semicircle, allowing light to diffuse into the interior and connecting family members in different spaces. And despite the seeming lack of storage cabinets in the house, we integrated cabinets into the walls, blending them with the columns and allowing the space to open up.

Images by Moooten Studio / Kevin Wu