Project Overview

Can togetherness be designed without erasing individuality? ECHOES is a 200-square-metre residence in Taipei, formed by merging two adjoining apartments into an open plan. The merger left behind a dense structural grid. A continuous curvilinear system absorbs it, turning constraint into a spatial logic that carries movement naturally from one zone to the next. A restrained material palette lets the space recede, so different scenes of daily life can unfold, overlap, and resonate within it simultaneously.

Full Story

The project began with two adjoining apartments merged into a single 200-square-metre shell. We organised the two perpendicularly oriented volumes into an L-shaped open layout, placing the living room on the side with the best natural light and carving out a coffee corner, reading nook, and lounge elsewhere in the public zone, giving every family member a place to settle into.

The kitchen and dining area sit at the centre of the home. For this family, cooking together and talking over meals is the most essential part of daily life, so placing the kitchen at the core lets it become the natural crossing point, a place everyone passes through and lingers in as they move between their own corners.

Open Plan and Continuous Curves

The open plan dissolves boundaries between zones, but the merger of two apartments left behind a high density of structural beams and columns, falling at nearly every threshold across the space. Localised concealment could not address a condition of this scale. In response, we developed a continuous curvilinear system that links the ceiling, walls, columns, and cabinetry into a single fluid envelope, absorbing every structural element into its sweeping arcs. At the entrance, a floor-to-ceiling cylindrical volume guides the arrival sequence, with storage and a display shelf integrated inside, while silvered ripple glass maintains a soft exchange of light and visibility between the foyer and the public domain. Moving along the curved surfaces, one's gaze is carried naturally from zone to zone, forming a perpetual loop of spatial perception.

An Accommodating Backdrop

The space remains generous enough to welcome new acquisitions, seasonal arrangements, and objects gathered from travels. We composed a quiet, restrained base in tones of apricot and dusted rose. On this foundation, texture creates depth: the tactile grain of hand-applied decorative plaster, the weight of natural stone, the softness of textiles, the cool precision of stainless steel, and the handcrafted warmth of hammered copper pendants. Same palette, different materiality. A low-chroma backdrop that nonetheless carries a rich sensory density.

Across the home, recurring motifs create a quiet dialogue between zones. Geometric patterned tiles at the foyer entrance echo those lining the shelves of a display cabinet near the kitchen. When the steel-framed sliding doors of the study are drawn open, the arched bookcase inside and the arched display cabinet beside the dining area mirror each other in layered depth. Herringbone timber flooring binds the two ends of the home together through a single, shared texture underfoot.

Living in Simultaneity

When continuity, openness, and accommodation are all in place, different scenes of daily life can coexist within the same space at the same time. Light introduces the dimension of time. As the sun shifts, different corners of the L-shaped layout are illuminated in turn, then ease back into softness. At night, carefully placed artificial lighting draws the daytime openness inward, contracting the space to a more intimate scale. We did not set out to define a style for this home. What it establishes is a dynamic state of inhabitation, one that allows each family member's character and traces of life to enter freely, to be seen and echoed within it. The echoes will not cease, because life itself is an unending signal, and this home is the medium built to carry it.