Ying Yu

Ying means the way light lands on a wall; Yu means a realm. Together they describe redrawing the boundaries of daily life inside a twenty-year-old apartment.

The original layout chopped the living room and bedrooms into fragments, and daylight stopped at the window. We removed the partitions so that living, dining and work areas flow into one open field, then used a low wall to anchor the sofa. On the far side of that wall sits a desk for two. Glass folding doors top the wall: closed when focus is needed, fully open the rest of the time, so neither light nor sightlines are ever cut off.

The palette is cream, pale beige and light wood. Zebra blinds slice the daylight into soft bands that fall across cabinet fronts and the desktop, the most changeable scenery in the home.

Storage is consolidated into a full wall of cabinetry in the work area. A curved display niche is carved from its centre and lined in walnut, holding a mushroom lamp and a few collected objects: one breathing gap in an otherwise functional wall.

Two months of design and five months of construction brought the light back into an old apartment. This is a home and, every day, a workplace; both find their place in the same light.