Butterfly Screens Penthouse by Bean Buro
Local studio Bean Buro’s design of this Hong Kong penthouse is based on a system of ornamental screens that blur the boundaries between private and social spaces. Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui and Lorène Faure tell us about how their team drew inspiration from the home’s location on a historic street in Kowloon to create a series of public and private spaces
Design Anthology: How did you first meet the client?
Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui (KKT): The clients are a resourceful couple who run a textile business and their daughter, who is a senior professional working for a tech company. The family members all have creative hobbies and a taste for art, and were looking for a design studio to refurbish their apartment to suit their new lifestyles.
They found out about Bean Buro through word of mouth. We invited them to our studio to talk through their visions for their apartment renovation, and we immediately knew the collaboration would result in something very unique and tasteful.
What’s unique about the building and the location?
Lorène Faure (LF): The building is located on Boundary Street in Kowloon. The street has strong historical and geographical significance and is known as the dividing line between Kowloon and the New Territories.
Our client’s penthouse has a private rooftop and garden. The apartment’s position on the uppermost level of a relatively low-rise building means that all of the windows along the front facade have unobstructed views of the city.
The apartment’s floor plan is rectangular, with the entrance in the middle. This layout naturally pushes the living quarters to either end of the floor plan, and we decided the space in the middle was the perfect place for the main lounge and dining area, with access to an enclosed kitchen and an internal staircase that connects to the rooftop.
What was the brief to you for the project?
KKT: The brief was to completely refresh the existing apartment that they’d been living in for many years, into a brand-new space that would cater to the family members’ unique needs. The grown-up daughter now required her own ‘studio space’, and her parents have grown older and enjoy spending more time relaxing at home and cooking, reading, dancing and gardening. One of the vital elements of the brief was that the daughter’s studio space needed to be private and separate from her parents’ living areas.
The bedrooms were to be kept very simple and bare, like a blank canvas for the clients to decorate over time. Thus, our design focus was on the communal areas and ensuring that the family is able to socialise on a daily basis while also ensuring they have private spaces.
What design references or narrative did you try to incorporate into the space?
KKT: The project is very much about setting the ‘boundaries’ between the parents and the daughter to create various levels of privacy. This concept also resonates with the characteristics of the Boundary Street neighbourhood.
LF: Each generation occupies a dedicated quarter of the home but can gather in the communal space located at the heart of the apartment. Different zones of activity and the way they’re linked together serves as the backbone of the narrative, which shaped the design and layout of the apartment. The private quarters have been conceptualised as ‘cocoons’ for a sense of privacy and are an overarching metaphor for a cosy refuge from the bustle of the city.
Inspired by the movements of butterflies, the communal area between the two private quarters was conceptualised as an energetic space for family interaction and vibrant social moments that serves as a connection between the private quarters.
KT: A system of ornamental screens with different porosities was created to blur the boundaries between private and social spaces. We playfully named these the ‘butterfly screens.’
Please tell us a little about the material choices for the space.
LF: The general feel was to be very luxurious but simple and tasteful. The main material finishes are European timber for all custom joinery and bedroom flooring, and we selected a beautiful green Italian marble for the pantry area’s countertops, brass metal accents for joinery, and a white marble tile with vertical grooves for the bathrooms.
We also deliberately left some walls painted white, bare and ready for the client to hang their artworks. These white walls also help to create an elegant, balanced atmosphere, where the space doesn’t feel over designed.
Please tell us about some of the custom pieces for the space.
KKT: The unique custom element is our ‘butterfly screens’ — a set of architectural devices that creates different boundaries and thresholds in the apartment. Each screen has an ornamental pattern of lines and curves, loosely inspired by the patterns on butterfly wings.
The screens present themselves either as porous open lattice panels or as solid partitions with the same ornamental pattern. These screens provide a sense of enclosure or division while creating a playful, layered effect across the large apartment.
As told to / Suzy Annetta
Images / Courtesy of Bean Buro
