TwoTwoSix

This is a classic Chinese tenement walk-up building constructed in the 1960s, occupying a corner lot facing Hollywood Road Park with 2,500sf site area. The ground floor is zoned commercial use while the floors above are for residential use.

 

The typical approach for a project like this would be redeveloping it into a high rise apartment block. This is how one maximises potential profits. However, when we looked at our surroundings, all the adjacent buildings were 5-storeys tall so we asked ourselves how to retain the aesthetic harmony and integrity of the neighbourhood without impacting our bottom line.

 

In the end, we took a leap of faith and kept the building’s architectural form as a 5-storey building, retained all the beams and column but completely gutted the interior. An elevator was retrofitted into the building core. London-based Studioilse, led by Ilse Crawford, was commissioned to modernise the building and it was reconfigured into 5 beautiful, one unit per floor, open-plan apartments.