UR Duplex Apartment, Shanghai

“How do you spend and cherish time with your loved ones at home? You may want to have some “me” time, but the closeness we feel when our family members are nearby and in sight is just as important.

Shanghai-based architecture design studio STUDIO8 has completed a 420-square-metre duplex apartment for a young couple with two kids. The couple wanted a spacious and clean living space where they can have their own space for different activities, while at the same time being able to spend quality time with family and friends. Converting the owners’ way of living into a timeless design is a key focus in residential design for STUDIO8. “The owners of a home should be the soul of the place and that is always our key inspiration,” said the architect.

The apartment is located on a quiet street in the center of Shanghai, lined with French plane trees and magnolia trees over ten meters high. The treetops are just at the height of the balcony window, making the apartment feel like an urban retreat for the family. The project involved transforming a 4.6-meter height space into a duplex apartment while creating visual and spatial connections between rooms and updating the space to better match the clients’ contemporary taste.

The owner told the architects that the family is very close-knit and they don’t need many rooms. After listening to the family’s needs and description of their daily life, the architects decided to make the space as open as possible and provide the most opportunities of sight lines between areas. Taking advantage of the height of the apartment, a sculptural volume formed by a passageway, a staircase and a fireplace were inserted into the junction of living room, dining room and kitchen. This layout joins as well as divides the public and private functions of the house. In order to make the mezzanine feel more solid and stable, STUDIO8 decided to use reinforced concrete as the structure. This made it crucial to study the openings of each space and hide the beams strategically without affecting the ceiling height for both floors.

The passageway of central volume starts above the entrance, with the dining room and living room below on both sides, horizontally connecting the kid’s room, the storage room, the couples’ walk-in closet and the husband’s study room on the upper floor. The staircase and fireplace, the feature of the double-height living space, creates the vertical connection. From the family room downstairs to the study room upstairs, the veranda to the living room, the passageway upstairs to the fireplace downstairs, the family can have sight lines with each other from every corner of the open area. A private metal spiral staircase also connects the master bedroom to the upper level walk-in closet.

Special lighting features are designed to complement the humble material choices. Lava stone and stucco marble powder give the space a timeless, homogeneous shade with subtle reflections revealing the various textures. A dynamic modular sofa island placed in the center of the living room connects the surrounding areas and allows the kids to climb from one side to the other. Though relatively low in height, the adjacent family room feels cozy and spacious as it opens towards the double-height staircase and is styled with a continuous light oak floor and low furniture. A set of irregular pebble-shaped frosted glass pendants hangs over the dining table. The warm grey monochromatic kitchen is positioned under the walk-in closet, limiting its ceiling height. However, thanks to the connection with the dining room and the view of trees from the veranda windows, the space still feels airy and comfortable.

STUDIO8’s aim for the design of the duplex apartment can be summed up by the words of the owner. “We really enjoy the time STUDIO8 has planned for us in different corners of the apartment, as well as the fact that we can always have each other in sight.”