House of a filmmaker | FON STUDIO

The project site is a lower part space of a duplex villa residence, owned by a young couple. As a film producer, Mr. Cui hopes this house is not just a cosy living place but also an experimental field - like his own "Life studio" to accommodate his unrestrained imagination. Thus, the designer's priority is to build a "transition" stage between chance and imagination through reasonable transformation of the existing site, so that the life stories and plot emotions of the house owners are naturally and lightly connected and presented.

The original design included two storeys and a five-meter-high basement. A staircase connected these spaces, making them parallel and relatively isolating. The basement was only lightened by a row of skylights on the south side, and the air circulation was fairly limiting. After site inspection and discussion with the client, the FON team made a proposal – to connect the ground floor and basement by “opening” a part of the floor slab, which could enhance the vertical expansion and introduce more lights into the basement, to discover the possibility of "flow" and "extension" of space.

From the garage into the basement - the main daily entrance of the home, a marble stone wall that runs through the space like a "spine", from the underground all the way up, guiding people's vision to extend upward, as if it has the power of growth, such as the continuous flow of time. Considering the basement is high enough, the designer proposed a mezzanine to create a guest room with a skylight.

The family room, dining room and kitchen arranged on the ground floor could provide convenience to daily needs. Out of the lobby, a semi-open glass corridor connects the interior and the courtyard blurring the boundaries of indoor and outdoor. Along the stairs, there is a relatively private, independent, comfortable and quiet rest space, where several bedrooms and closets for family members are arranged.

The overall tone of the home is dominated by warmth. Steady and elegant timber, ivory-white travertine with a natural texture and unadorned limestone, give the space natural warmth and texture. A house is not just about walls and ceilings. A good space design should show more concerns about the atmosphere, lighting, route and scale. The free wandering of light, shadow and colour breaks the stillness of the space and brings a unique vividness like "transition".