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Stairway Courtyard Brings a Glass Box of Light into Hong Kong Renovation

This surprising courtyard lightens a renovated house in the Sha Tin neighborhood of Hong Kong by Millimeter Interior Design Limited.

Parking and entrance is on the first floor next to the stair.

A strange aquarium-like light penetrates deeply into the house via this glass-boxed courtyard by the staircase.

The master bedroom suite is accessed up past the glass courtyard, so every trip up or down is next to nature.

The renovation of an existing 40-year old house transforms it into a comfortable and modern accommodation with spacious rooms.

Now, its spacious master bedroom suite has room to breathe.

And from high in the hills of Hong Kong, the city far below can be glimpsed through the most luxurious of bathrooms.

A study is tucked into the top of the stairs, overseeing the glass box.

Somehow the new design contains a garage, a living room, a dining room, a garden, two guest rooms, two guest bathrooms, one helper suite, a master bedroom suite with a spacious walk in closet and a study room.

The dry pebble garden itself lends a zen presence to the renovated house.

The original structure of the house is preserved, but the exterior walls are clad in metal.

The result transforms an older house into a hip new urban home, while retaining the original structure without trace.

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The Courtyard House Maximizes a Dark Forest Site

NO ARCHITECTURE has created a lovely house with a central courtyard reflected in the hexagonal cut-out in the roof.

The roof cut-out uses passive solar gain, allowing light and air inside, to a potentially dark site.

This central courtyard brings light down into the center of the home and is conceived as both uniter and divider creating space and privacy within.

Highly polished concrete floors throughout reflect the surrounding forest.

The courtyard, while continuing the surrounding indigenous landscape, also supplies a convenient kitchen garden for the family cook.

The design provides the privacy needed for family life while respecting the natural surroundings.

Other than the hexagonal cut-out, the straightforward and unassuming design predominates.

The Courtyard House is designed in such a way that any room can be a living space during the day and a sleeping space at night.

In this way it can be a house that offers a tranquil setting for introspection and work without a feeling of being overcrowded in a small space.

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An Eccentric Skiers Getaway in China – Snow Apartment

Now here’s a strange sight! And is that… a ski rack?

The Snow Apartment by penda is located in Zhangjiakou, Hebei, China in a famous skiing region north of Beijing.

Inspired by a melting snowfield in spring, when nature slowly revives from winter and offers a contrast of cold and warm, white and colored, the apartment is entirely white and wood.

A series of skylights offer the only daylight – as if we really have been buried in a snowdrift.

The plastered walls of ‘snow’ are suspended just above the floor with brilliant white LED under lighting – further suggesting spring melting.

To build the soft undulating ‘snow’, local craftsmen hand-plastered over wooden forms.

By ancient tradition, craftsmen in the north of China are familiar with the exacting techniques required to generate these sorts of handcrafted plaster curves.

A network of heating pipes is inside the thick plaster and emits a gentle radiant warmth through the thick plaster walls.

These cozily warmed walls of ‘snow’ are enjoyed by the client and his guests after a cold day skiing.

The layout of this strange folly is on a grid, with the extensive plaster form work attached to the wooden base.

Most of the bedrooms get some sort of a skylight like melting snow.

With seven bedrooms and several bathrooms, the very eccentric Snow Apartment provides room for the client and his friends to gather at a ski weekend-getaway that is really quite unique.