When KiKi ARCHi, an architecture firm—founded by Yoshihiko Seki and Saika Akiyoshi—centred around residential architecture, with offices in Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai, was entrusted with a brief to construct a modern-day residence in Beijing, their biggest challenge was weaving in the client’s prized assortment of golden nanmu wood furniture. While the furnishings layout types the primary character of the dwelling, the designer thought that it would flood the minimal dwelling house. In addition, the classical design, dimensions and regular decoration lacked the probable to synergise with contemporary residing.




Nanmu is a sort of wooden, whose use can be traced back to the imperial household in the Ming and Qing dynasties where it was a well-known architectural and furnishings material. Acquired from a species of the tree Phoebe zhennan, nanmu can improve up to 30 metres. In the past, the furniture from this tree was so worthwhile that only royal families could afford its use. Its most noteworthy usage is in the ‘Forbidden City,’ wherever pillars were created using complete wooden logs. Chinese publications have documents of golden nanmu becoming a good and sturdy product with a one of a kind texture and silky lustre, emitting sensitive fragrances and being extremely tasteful.




The non-public home then, turns into an exploration of combining the owner’s basic collection interest with a design language that compliments a modern life style. By making modifications to the composition, structure, daylight and content texture of the house, a ‘sense of ritual’ and ‘inclusiveness’ was demonstrated. It signifies daily life and the stability in house and display style. The dwelling has a basement, two flooring earlier mentioned floor and an attic. The initial flooring also is composed of a terrace backyard garden.




The consumer is welcomed into the entrance corridor with a double-quantity place. The designer has created a ‘patio’ with interiors flooded with natural light, softened by a textured artwork deco wall. The unique washroom was eradicated from the second flooring, developing a 5-metre-substantial room which delivers down the gentle from the second flooring to the initially. This part is a prologue to the complete inside design practical experience, with three colors of black, white and gray made use of in significant portions. They come to be integral backgrounds for the ‘traditional,’ ‘modern’ and ‘transition’ respectively. A translucent black-framed glass sliding doorway serves as a transitional element into the approaching dark scene. The texture of the gray terrazzo connects with the outdoors, when the artwork deco wall generates a feeling of rhythm.




The ‘coexistence of nanmu and modern life’ turns into the concept of the residential design and style, with the tone, light-weight and texture of the house getting to be a issue of harmony for the romantic relationship between the nanmu wooden furnishings and the setting. The initial floor—where the operator spends most of their time—makes for the centre stage of the design. It consists of the hallway, the eating room, the kitchen, the tea space, the out of doors courtyard and so on. The dwelling corridor, earlier the black framed glass sliding doorway, stands out in its daring black background. The kind of the living home originates from the ‘central room’ in traditional Chinese architecture. The golden nanmu extended table and the calligraphy do the job on the wall, propped from the black textured qualifications, show an old-globe allure. The couch on the side, with a rug underneath, breaks the symmetry in the common aesthetic, making the house a lot more relaxed and in contact with modern day architecture. The spaces are perfectly-lit, with major openings welcoming pure light-weight just about everywhere.




The eating room, attached to the residing room, conveys a brighter component. The custom made-built tables, chairs, and aspect cabinets spotlight the qualities of the golden nanmu wooden with their unadorned capabilities. The developed-in facet cupboard lets the space to categorical a feeling of volume, because it does not consider up open area. It tends to make the cupboard appear visually lighter. The kitchen area, adjacent to the dining space and connected to the backyard garden terrace, is given a gray type, with a hint of heat exuded from the picket cabinets. The lightness in type was brought by propping up the capabilities versus the wall. Transparency was obtained with the hanging cabinets, maximising the circulation of gentle and air.




The owner’s favorite space is the tea room, a glass room situated at the stop of the 1st ground. It is connected to the backyard garden terrace. Produced with an aluminium roof and glass partition, it supplies an ethereal sensation. A perception of timelessness is attained with the place, as the home overlooks the yard terrace with white partitions. The minimalist back garden has a sunken system and accesses the basement with an exterior stairway. The out of doors areas layer into a contemporary place just after the renovation. The place supplies a feeling of independence as it blurs the borders between the within and the outside. The vegetation deliver an earthiness to the spaces, finishing the symphony of previous and new.




A modernist staircase with floating ways and a folded metallic plate railing sales opportunities to the higher ground. The surrounding art deco wall results in a feeling of softness with organic gentle, lending a perception of heat to the space foremost up to the more private areas—the review area and the bed room. The attic—previously tough to use—was remodeled into a smaller space for meditation, playing the zither and incensing—a place to link with oneself.




‘Mountains are far absent,’ a musical piece by Yo-Yo Ma featuring traditional Chinese instruments this kind of as the pipa and the sheng, as well as a contemporary string quartet, developing a one of a kind blend, has a contemplative and tranquil excellent, with a continuous rhythm and a light melody, equivalent to the heat and richness that the golden nanmu household furniture can bring to a modern-day interior. This undertaking then, acts as an extension of KiKi ARCHi’s price as a multinational style and design studio that internalises style and design for properly-currently being, as a result of thoughtfully crafted simplicity.




Project Specifics
Title: Typical Satisfies Contemporary

Spot: Beijing, China

Place: 120 sqm

12 months of completion: 2022

Architect: Yoshihiko Seki
