Residential

The Harbour Project

North Point, Hong Kong

Bespoke joinery throughout, harbour-facing apartment

Photography Pending

An apartment with the harbour on one side and very little floor area on the other. The color scheme is kept deliberately quiet so that the view is the thing you notice when you walk in.

We removed the wall separating the bedroom from the main living space, and replaced it with a double-sided, floor-to-ceiling cabinet that maximizes storage while providing privacy for the sleeping and dressing zone. A dining bench is integrated into the cabinet in the dining area, saving floor area. The fewer loose pieces of furniture in this space, the less cluttered it feels. Per the client's request, the dining bench faces the TV to accommodate her preference for watching shows during mealtime.

The bed sits on a platform. The step up to it is itself a run of drawers, and the entire bed lifts up to reveal more storage. Even the space at the bay window (often wasted) was utilized, as it supports the foot end of the mattress, reducing the total length of the bed by 1/5. A platform bed of this size buys back roughly the storage of a full wall of wardrobes without a single cupboard door appearing in the room. The headboard is a curved oak panel with an upholstered center and a recessed ledge above holding a socket for a phone.

The bed's headboard serves double duty as the backside is a dressing table, conveniently located by the wardrobe. There is ample storage for skincare and make-up, with open shelving to one side and drawers below. The mirror has integrated LED lights for optimal make-up application. A dedicated work desk is built into the bay window to take advantage of the natural daylight and the jaw-dropping view.

Every exposed edge in the flat is rounded, on the headboard, on the dressing table, on the end of the main cabinet run. In a compact apartment, you brush past joinery constantly, and a curved corner is the difference between furniture you live with and furniture that quite literally hurts you.

Light oak and white laminate, upholstered headboard panel and dining bench cushion.

Bedroom opening to a balcony, with built-in joinery and a desk set into the window bay — The room opens through full-height sliding glass to a balcony and the harbour beyond, with the desk built into the side window bay and the double-sided cabinet standing to the right. Putting the desk in the bay rather than against a solid wall is what gives a working surface the daylight and the view at once.

The double-sided cabinet with an oak-lined recess and bench, three open shelves and tall cupboards — The cabinet that replaced the bedroom wall, seen from the living side, with the sleeping platform and dressing table just visible past its rounded end. It combines closed white cupboards top and bottom with an oak-lined recess and the bench through the middle, three open shelves beside it. Lining only the open compartments in oak and keeping every door flat white is what stops a full wall of storage from reading as heavy, because the timber appears exactly where the eye stops.

Platform bed on a drawer base with a curved oak headboard and dressing table behind — The bed sits on a platform of deep drawers, reached by a step that is itself a run of drawers, with a curved oak headboard rising behind it into a partition that carries the dressing table on its far side. Using the headboard as a room divider is what lets one piece of joinery serve a sleeping side and a dressing side, and it saves the wall a separate partition would have cost.

A smaller cabinet run beside a doorway, with an oak-lined niche, a seat and a rounded end panel — The same language repeats at smaller scale beside a doorway: white doors, an oak-lined niche with a seat, open shelves next to it, and a generously rounded end where the run stops. Repeating one detail rather than designing each area separately is what makes a compact flat feel considered instead of assembled.

As Built

The double-sided cabinet as built, with the oak-lined recess, cushioned bench and window desk installed — The cabinet as installed, with the oak-lined recess, its cushioned bench and the three open shelves in place, and the window-bay desk visible to the left.

All work Next: The Canyon Project