Inside a Kuala Lumpur house with a Japanese-style tatami room for sipping tea
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Inside a Kuala Lumpur business firm with a Japanese-style tatami room for sipping tea
This Malaysian family unit'south new home in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur features tranquil interiors that reflect their quest for a slower step of life.
A mezzanine level overlooking the entrance foyer was transformed into a Japanese-mode tearoom, consummate with a view of a bonsai tree. (Photograph: David Yeow Photography)
07 Nov 2022 06:30AM (Updated: 04 Jul 2022 11:52PM)
Malaysian entrepreneurial couple Wilson Lee and Emily Loo own and operate Beaute Library, a successful chain of beauty specialist centres across the country. They as well have three young children aged from ii to 13. Work and home life is therefore as bustling.
The family used to live in a condominium in Kuala Lumpur's affluent Sri Hartamas district but decided to decamp from the urban center centre in their search for a larger abode. This move was synonymous with a desire for their growing brood to experience a slower pace of life amid nature.
They institute their current residence in a strata-landed housing estate that is perched on a hill and surrounded by forest gullies, merely only a xx-infinitesimal car ride away from downtown Kuala Lumpur.
The couple engaged Wunderwall Blueprint for the interiors, which is defined by a palette of oak timber, precast micro terrazzo floors and marble with accents of PVD-coated steel.
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"Our arroyo is less about conforming to Japanese or Scandinavian styles, simply more on achieving a subtle tonality throughout the firm with materials that are lite and warm – cypher too strong," said Ee Wil Ken, who heads the Kuala Lumpur-based firm with Sharmaine Wong and Chia Wei Hoong.
A large pivoting door leads from the car park lots into a double-volume entrance hall, where a low marble wall with fluted glass marks the threshold into the home proper. An organically shaped mirror offers glimpses into the living room, likewise as lets the occupants cheque their appearance for a concluding time before leaving the house.
The living and dining room open into a terrace with luxuriant landscape views. To retain their lofty ceiling heights, the blueprint team contained the multi-split air-conditioners in the centre. It is wrapped in elegant cabinetry and reads as a service spine that as well contains the television set for the living room and kitchen equipment for the dry kitchen.
As the surface area needed to contain the services was rather wide, the design squad fabricated it usable by turning it into a mezzanine and inserted a tearoom on the side overlooking the foyer. While the owners are not avid tea drinkers, they enjoy the communal aspect of traditional Japanese tea ceremonies. A bonsai constitute viewed through a circular window whisks them abroad for a moment to a ryokan in Kyoto.
"The get-go footstep in designing the tearoom was to omit chairs with legs," said Chia on replicating the Japanese floor-sitting practice. "Nosotros as well raised a small platform to delineate the tatami-finished space from the circulation area beside information technology." The big, white wall with the bonsai view and a wall of dark shelves enclose the surface area, resulting in its intimate feel.
Above the table, a Shade pendant from Flos casts a halo on the ceiling reminiscent of the Japanese enso circle – a symbol of Japanese minimalism. The design team customised the table to fit this lamp. It has a split down the centre that is joined by a granite tea tray symbolising the connection between giver and receiver in the deed of tea serving.
Thoughtful details such equally these are of import in creating the house's restful grapheme. For example, the owners had originally intended to fully clad the dining room wall in marble but the design team steered them toward a subtler and less opulent approach of treating the marble as an abstract artwork.
The resulting slab of uncoated, naturally textured marble is an accent against the whitewashed walls. It likewise forms an interesting properties to the dining table.
Using a few selected materials help reduce visual clutter, merely applied in varied ways, the home is far from staid. The marble slab-cum-art piece is 1 instance. At that place is also the monolithic Bidasar greenish marble coffee table in the living room and a Serpeggiante marble bench at the dining that morphs into staircase threads and risers on the first storey, merging furniture and architecture.
The staircase is a key feature in the home. The pattern team clothed the entire structure, including the balustrades, in oak veneer such that it reads like a singular, sculptural chemical element. There are gaps in parts of the balustrade that prevent the massing from appearing as well heavy. From sure angles, information technology reads equally a series of floating planes.
"A staircase spanning v storeys can exist visually chaotic. Our response to streamline the design reduces the staircase's complexity into a simple form of straight lines," said Ee.
While the common areas are tempered, the bedrooms feature pops of colour and design, peculiarly in the children's rooms.
"Much thought has been put into integrating the children's hobbies with the design of their ain rooms," affirmed Wong. The daughter chose her room'southward carnation-pinkish colour. As she loves reading, at that place are enough of in-built shelves and a reading corner. The eldest son is an avid collector of Lego models and origami, which are displayed in drinking glass-door cabinets.
The owner's personal retreat is on the meridian storey. Similar on the first storey, the master bedroom'southward layout is loosely divided into two halves – ane for sleeping, and the other for study and watching television. Behind the custom-designed bed, a tall, scalloped headboard emphasises the space's loftiness.
The primary sleeping room's en-suite was enlarged from a smaller sleeping accommodation. Removing some walls enhanced cross-ventilation. The larger footprint also enables the inclusion of a large, built-in bathtub and a standalone island for the washbasins.
A new skylight higher up the bathtub brings in abundant light; at night, it opens to views of the night sky for the user soaking the mean solar day'due south cares away.
On the aforementioned level is a gym with an fastened steam shower room for the husband, an avid outdoorsman. It features a utilitarian-chic design that comes with smart lighting and 2 types of custom shelving.
"The modular shelf for outdoor gear was conceived equally a wall feature to display the possessor's myriad equipment," described Ee.
While this infinite is for personal relaxation and health, the basement is designed for unwinding of another nature. Information technology houses a small bar, cinema room and rumpus room. Exposed raw physical ceilings and specialist cement flooring lend an industrial tactility. The latter manifests in stepped profiles – a clever solution to mitigate an existing stand-up beam across the floor while subtly demarcating zones of function.
The family gather here for remainder and relaxation at day's end. It has also witnessed many of the couple's social functions. The bar counter was specifically tailored to the wine connoisseur husband's specifications, downwards to the grid-like vino bottle holder.
The home'southward tasteful pick of furniture and lighting was generally chosen by Ee to complement the serene interior design. Archetype and bespoke pieces mingle in a fashion that reflects a considered analysis of class, infinite and texture.
For case, the pattern team designed two java tables in the living room that aid intermission upwardly the space's lengthy proportions. "One is a marble superlative with slim metal legs and the other is a mesomorphic cake of marble," said Wong.
The lighting blueprint of the unabridged home as well goes beyond pure role. "The aim was to divert from the traditional norm of fitting excessive downwardly lights in all the spaces and instead maintain a bully ceiling through careful planning of indirect lighting, which likewise delivers a softer mood to the home," said Chia.
Task lights are equally well placed. Above the pianoforte, a Vitra Potence wall lamp designed by Jean Prouve stretches out to illuminate the grand piano without beingness obstructive. A rhythmic arrangement of Flamingo pendant lamps from Vibia float above the dry kitchen counter mirror that of 6 George Nelson-designed Bubble lamps in the living room.
This aspect of design is ofttimes disregarded by homeowners but is as important in creating the right ambience every bit choosing the correct material or article of furniture. Indeed, it is proof of the complexity that goes into creating a holistically restful surround.
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/obsessions/inside-kuala-lumpur-house-japanese-style-tatami-room-sipping-tea-247091
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