The Ganna Studio | Ganna Design

Taipei City / Taiwan / 2013

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Ganna studio is a 40 years apartment which locates in downtown Taipei. Ganna Studio is not merely functioned as an interior design studio but a cozy home for two designers. All the houses in this community are preserved for several decades and can be traced back to the ancient Taipei. In order not to destroy those old historical elements, the building structures was left untouched and being retrofitted a little bit to extend longer usage. The designers implant European classic interior design features to make the space long lasting and comfortable with multi-functions. These two designers make this house beyond regulation and imagination.
Rather than doing any change on the original building structure but keep memorable furniture with its value, designers integrate harmonious fusion with classical style and modern style, such as the contrast between the old red gate and mitered herringbone flooring, andthat of decorative molding wall panels and ceiling.

Ganna Studio embodies the old and new spirits.

First of all, lightning is always the first priority consideration for the users. Therefore, the two designers use large folding windows to make natural sunlight illuminate the space. Besides, a set of rotatable molding panels is another innovation; when panels are closed, it separate the working zone and the meeting room, when the panels opened, two spaces can join as one. Seeing through the open panels, people in the working space can also enjoy to the garden view.
The color of panels is the same with basic tone of the wall, serving as an extension of ceiling and wall. In addition, ceiling and bookcases are colored in different layers of grey. Generally speaking, this basic tone can sets off the colorfulness of other furniture.
These design elements used in the Ganna studio invisibly integrate with original structure of the house and become the leading roles of the visual points.

What makes this project interesting?
The most interesting part ofrenovating our studio was the figuring out how to combine living area and working spacewithout intruding each other. As interior designers, our job is to fully intertwined life and house. Hence, a integrate function of working space with living space would help the residents- also the designers to enhance our working efficiency and productivity, and to fuel our passion on working everyday.

- When was the project completed?
 2013.02

- What was the overall budget for the project?
  Total expense of this project is around NTD 1.8- 2 million which includesrenovation construction on all of interior, exterior space andfurniture used.
-Can you tell me more about the louvers with the molding on them? They are an interesting/defining feature. 
In order to let natural sunlight gointo the house including meeting zone and work area, we tried some ways to improve the illumination. An idea to make the partition become louver-like came up with mind. So I re-define them as flexible evolvable panels from ceiling to floor, quite interesting, isn’t it?
The color of those panels was also deliberately picked up. The light gray was chosen in order to extend the color of the wall, ceiling and bookcases. All of them are covered with different layers of gray, thus reflecting different layers of the space.Besides, the basic “same”tone allows other colorful furniture and books fit into decoration.
- Any materials, techniques or product sources that helped you save money on the bottom line?
Frankly speaking, we did consider costingit down asmuch as we could, but not much achieved. However, since we aimed to make a showroom and a sweet home together us, it would be okay because we considered the expense as investment.
We bought our favorite furniture which can be integrated into our design, and ca be carried away if we move to another place in future.  

- Details onmaterials (interior/exterior/structural/decorative) as you can give you for reference.

The acreage of inner space is about 53m2  ,and that of yard is about 30m2 .
1.       Work table (for employees):Thetable wallwasa kind wood which often usedto make outdoor wall by Taiwanese architecture in the early stage. This wood was torn down from an old building. That’s why it has some holes on itssurface; those holes are the marks for latches of the old building. 
2.       Louver Panels: as mentioned above.The otherwe can illustrate more clearly to you is the wallpaper on the panels.The classical wallpaperwas made in France, the texture, soft. The original wallpaper design combines 3 layouts as a full width of a wallpaper roll, I evenly separate it into three parts with each the width of 430mm.
3.       Marble stone as sofa platform:  Inorder to make a main wall in living room obviously and avoid the space being cut into pieces, I chose marble stone as a platform on which was put a sofa. All of them were customized.
4.       Color arrangement: Based on the same tone of color, we adopted different layers of gray on the wall, ceiling, panels and the book shelf. So the whole visual effect can be elongated, making the color on the furniture extend to the building structure. Besides, since gray is what we called “basic color”, so it allows other colorful furniture and books can be integrated into design. Color adoption is one of what we are proud of ourselves.
- Some more information about you, the residents! You are both architects? Any children? Some background info on what you wanted in a dwelling.

Well, the residents in this house are actually we ourselves. Shi- Jie Lin is my boyfriend, classmate and work partner. Both of us are interior designers. Besides, he is good at coordinating with clients and controlling all details in construction; I can focus on design, without worrying about other things.
  
Before we moved to this place, we were stay in an even smaller place with only 25 square meters, unbelievable small but quite common in crowded Taipei. We always tried to find a bigger place. Then we accidentally found this house because of a client wanted to do renovation. The girl has two apartments but her budget was limited. We fell in love with the atmosphere here at the first glance of this house. It contains a lot of vintage features, and locates in a very convenient area. In addition, there is a little lovely garden so we can ideally let our doggies run on it. Finally we made a deal with the girl and renovated this house to be our studio.
One year ago, this house condition was in quite a terrible condition. The chance to meet the original resident and the decision on renting here really solved the problems on both side. Both of us and the girl are happy and thanks to the chance. The story is quite interesting, isn’t it?

- Any "green" (ecological or sustainable) materials or methods?
The wooden table in the working area was picked up from a plant. The wood was about to be discarded, but at the first glance we knew that the wood will be part of our home. Except for this, the materials were rarely related to what we called green. By the way, we do our best to do horticulture to make the whole environment “green”.

- Has the project been published anywhere beyond the Taiwanese magazines you mentioned back in September?
Yes, it was published by some magazines a lot of countries such as Russia, Italy, and Ukraine and so on. We are appreciate those chances given and hope we can earn the chance to be published from you. Of course, everything has to follow your schedule.

Furthermore, I would like to provide you more details about material used and furniture with band name.
1.    Main materials:
old red gate
mitered herringbone flooring
decorative molding wall panels
metal
special pattern wall paper
marble
oak panel
polished glass paint surface

2.    Brand of furniture adopted
Roche Bobois-Jean Paul Gaultier sofa
Living room/  light lamp -MartinelliluceFilifili
Light lamp in Meeting Table Zone –Kartell-Neutra
Light lamp in Office area–Tom Dixon Cone Light Pendant Large
Living room/ floor lamp- LigneRoset / Solveig by Avril de Pastre
Chair- Der Heidi 65 Hockerwurde 2010 von Sebastian Wrong für Established & Sons kreiert.
Cherner-Armchair
Panton ChairEames Plastic Armchair RAR/ DSW/LCW
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    Ganna studio is a 40 years apartment which locates in downtown Taipei. Ganna Studio is not merely functioned as an interior design studio but a cozy home for two designers. All the houses in this community are preserved for several decades and can be traced back to the ancient Taipei. In order not to destroy those old historical elements, the building structures was left untouched and being retrofitted a little bit to extend longer usage. The designers implant European classic interior design...

    Project details
    • Year 2013
    • Work finished in 2013
    • Status Completed works
    • Type Offices/studios
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