Location: Montreal
Firm: Inpho Architecture, Montreal
Designer: Jean-Maxime Labrecque
The brief: transform an apartment to make it feel like an art gallery, so austere that the owner’s guests would find it unflinchingly cold. Architect Jean-Maxime Labrecque met this ostentatious challenge by gutting the 74-square-metre space to its original concrete shell, and devising a sophisticated raw aluminum system measuring 4.5 by 7.5 metres and equipped with sliding doors attached only at the top. This supports multi-functional modules, including a bed, a generous closet, kitchen cabinetry and seating. The bathroom, finished entirely in black tile, is housed in an old concrete vault.
Location: Long Beach, California
Firm: Hong Kong Stunt Team, Santa Ana
Designer: Hing Yeung
Vintage furnishings, along with a collection of Qing dynasty Buddha figures, originals by graffiti artist Banksy, and Chinese ad posters from the ’20s, are energetically arranged in this 167-square-metre California loft. While respecting the owner’s eclectic taste, Hing Yeung of Hong Kong Stunt Team (which has produced athletic fashions for Reebok, Puma and Kappa) inserted several custom touches. In the kitchen, the powder blue MDF cabinetry is routed with grooves, creating a cohesive, cheery tile motif against the raw concrete shell. In the bedroom, the carved walnut bed frame, drilled with 3,000 holes, evokes a traditional Chinese floor screen.