Work-Life Balance at Bizhouse
In transforming this tong lau into Bizhouse, Bean Buro imagined a new way for residents to live and work in the same apartment, with spaces designed to be adaptable to their needs. We spoke to the studio’s co-founders to find out more about their approach to blurring and balancing the boundaries between work and home
Design Anthology: How did you first meet the client?
Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui (KKT): The client, Hysan Development, came to us after hearing about our experience in workplace and residential design. The developers were keen to revamp one of their tong lau buildings (a traditional tenement building in Hong Kong, built in the mid-20th century) in the Causeway Bay neighbourhood and they invited us to collaborate with them on designing something for how people live and work in this day and age.
What was the brief to you for the project?
KKT: Over the past few years, our client has observed a global rise in people working from home (long before the COVID-19 pandemic). Urban professionals or start-ups require a higher level of flexibility, and many of them could benefit from having a space in the heart of a convenient neighbourhood where they can live and work comfortably and productively.
Lorène Faure (LF): The scope was to refurbish the entire building, including most of the internal floors plates (there are four floors with three apartments on each), an outdoor roof terrace and the ground-floor entrance lobby.
What’s unique about the building and the location?
LF: Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay is fast-paced, convenient, sociable and energetic, and offers a wide variety of shops and restaurants. The building integrates itself into the urban fabric, responding to needs for flexibility and convenience, as well as calmness and softness — a much-needed oasis in the buzzing city. It offers privacy for residents to live and work comfortably in a vibrant neighbourhood. They can enjoy privacy in their apartments while being all sorts of traditional and modern offerings are easily accessible on the streets below.
How did you approach the project and what design references did you try to incorporate into the space?
LF: We started the design process with a series of questions: What is ‘home’ in this day and age? How do you keep your work clutter away and create a sense of calm and tranquillity when you need to relax? You don’t want to live in a stressful office space, and you can’t work productively from home — so what do you do?
Such questioning drove the design, where we proposed to not only blur the boundary between life and work but also to find a new balance between functionality and beauty. The concept was to create a set of apartments that can support productive working by day and be easily transformed into a restful living space at night.
This project as an example of transforming a dated building into a relevant and functional space that responds to the way we all live and work today.
Please tell us a little about the material choices for the space.
KKT: For the internal spaces, we wanted to create a fresh and airy environment that’s in stark contrast with the busy neighbourhood outside. So, our materials and colour palette is predominately white and neutral with high-quality timber. We used black metal to accentuate the open space, and for the bathrooms and kitchen we specified small white ceramic tiles to create a softer texture.
Please tell us about some of the custom pieces for the space.
KKT: The main idea was to create a generous open space in each apartment where a variety of activities can happen. Each apartment includes a fold-down bed that can be easily tucked away during the day to maximise the floor area. The open space has a movable and extendable table that transforms from a desk to a dining table to an extensive collaboration table that caters for group meetings. Each apartment also has a loose custom sofa on wheels that can be stored inside a wardrobe.
On each floor, the lift corridor is kept minimal and fresh. Each apartment’s door is a writable surface where residents can leave messages for one another. Residents can also access and borrow shared amenities like stacked loose stools for hosting group meetings inside their apartments.
The black and red mural on the front facade was done by camera brand Leica, who’s flagship store is on the ground floor of the building.
Do you have a favourite element or design detail in the architecture or interiors?
LF: Our favourite element is the black line that runs horizontally around the perimeter of each apartment. It creates a continuous effect, physically connecting all the surfaces and creating a sense of generosity that makes the interior area feel more significant than it is. The black line resonates with the other black accents such as the rounded mirror cabinet in the bathroom and each apartment’s door frame.
Images / Courtesy of Bean Buro
