An architect made a breakthrough of squeezing more than a thousand rooms into a 344-sq-ft apartment. This innovative concept was created and designed by Gary Chang who had once lived in a near-limitless small space for over 30 years. Mr. Chang has a successful interior design and architectural practice in Hong Kong, a city where most of the people are living in shoebox space apartments and luxury developments are simply defined as a bigger shoebox in a rich neighbourhood.
The award-winning architect has found his niche by transforming a tiny unit into a revolutionary home that changes according to individual needs. By using movable walls, a complex series of sliding curtains and panels and fold-down furniture to serve as room dividers, Mr. Chang has taken his concept to extreme and near-obsessive levels.
“I try to argue that the problem of living in small spaces is a global phenomenon,” said Mr. Chang. “Many major cities have to deal with similar issues - Hong Kong has a long history of working with the idea of tight spaces, but small doesn't have to mean depressing.”
In a space similar to a single-car garage, Mr. Chang has created a home that has a walk-in closet, a dining room, kitchen, home cinema, spa, guest room, a sizeable home office, a walk-in closet, a minimalist living room, and even a relaxation room equipped with hammock and mood music.
His home also features a sophisticated home automation system to help with the transformations, while several elements have multiple-uses, like a full-size home cinema screen which also serves as a blackout curtain.
The catch is that the space can only be one thing at a time. The toilet and the shower area are permanent fixtures and the full-size bathtub is inserted behind a panel that has a fold-up bed above the top for a guest. But this is a condition that Mr. Chang took into account from the beginning. He designed his apartment to fit his own needs, and he calls it the “Domestic Transformer”.
“The key factor is that I take a time-based approach,” he said. “At any one time you are only doing one thing, so instead of moving from space to space, the same space changes at different times for different needs.”
He added that “it is not entirely innovative, but a response to what we've always been doing - everything was always mutating due to the lack of space.”
Mr. Chang acquired the house for HK$350,000 more than 20 years ago. Since then, he has spent a lot of time and a large amount reinventing the space. The latest version for his home took a year, when he spent HK$1.8 million to renovate and design the apartment. Everything had to be accurate and precise, even to the smallest millimetre, and workers had to work one section at a time. The primary materials used are polished granite and stainless steel.
Mr. Chang estimated the current value of his house to be HK$1.6 million. “I have a very different concept of money,” he said.
“A lot of architects use their own homes to experiment,” he noted. “We should explore our own living environment and I don't really care how much I spend - it's a testing ground for me.”
“I'm not finished - it's like a game to try and squeeze in more elements - the next stage is a mahjong table for my friends.”
Mr. Chang attributed his ideas of space to those who grew up in a proverbial shoebox-size home, but he has proven that a small space can actually be liberating, not limiting.
“It was my problem because I grew up that way,” said Mr. Chang. “During my childhood, many tenants had full height wallpapers with pictures of waterfalls or forests to give them the idea of space - each generation had their way of making their home more tolerable.”
“Nowadays, people are more concerned with designing their home with the resale value in mind, rather than customising it to suit their lifestyles.” His own lifestyle includes travelling 120 days per year, and Mr. Chang has even published a book entitled ‘Hotel as Home’, where he describes each hotel room he had stayed in.
“My home may not be the ultimate way to transform a space, but the central spirit is the same - you look closely at your own life, see what you want, and organise the space accordingly,” said Mr. Chang.
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