yinjispace

INTERIOR
Shire Space
PHOTOGRAPHY
Here Space Photography
EDITOR
Gina
Collection

The Li family lives in a residential complex near Xixi Wetland. As their family needs have grown, their current home can no longer support the pace of daily life or meet their expectations for the future. Through this renovation, they hope to realign their lifestyle with the language of space. The family has higher expectations for balancing ‘storage’ and ‘display’. They look forward to a home that not only accommodates daily life but also sparks curiosity and interaction. After gaining a deep understanding of the family's routines, Xili Design chose "books" as the central thread of the space, aiming to create a home where reading can happen anytime and a sense of fun can grow naturally. In the end, the circulation flow of this home was designed as a gentle journey centered around books.

The homeowner owns a substantial collection of books. If stored in traditional bookshelves, it would easily create a sense of visual clutter and congestion, while also making it difficult to maintain order and consistency over long-term use. At the same time, the limited living space must accommodate various life scenarios, such as socializing, reading, and family interaction. Therefore, creating an open and inclusive "family common space" became the core objective of the design.

We abandoned the traditional central layout of the living room and, taking advantage of the building’s existing double-height structure, created a grand floor-to-ceiling bookshelf wall. It serves as both an extension of the architectural form and the starting point of the spatial narrative — imbued with the tranquility and depth reminiscent of an "old European library," setting a calm, substantial, and inclusive tone for the entire home. The terraced seating naturally creates a leisure area within the vertical circulation, intimate in scale, rich in layers, while also subtly serving as zoning elements. Here, we integrated a water bar, a coffee corner, and a small conversation area, seamlessly accommodating reading, socializing, and parent-child interaction, allowing daily family life to flow in a more free and open manner.

By setting back the upper living room floor, we created a ‘relinquished blank space’ between it and the lower-level dining area. This allows more natural light to reach the dining room, improving illumination on the lower floor. At the same time, it establishes a visual and behavioral connection in the vertical dimension, enabling family members on different levels to maintain communication and connection. Additionally, we incorporated a ‘pass-through window’between the kitchen and the dining area, which effectively optimizes the workflow between meal preparation and dining. This not only enhances the efficiency of daily routines but also makes cooking and dining more interactive and connected.

In this shared space, we needed to accommodate both children’s play and their study needs. However, traditional fixed furniture often limits spatial flexibility, making it easy for different activities to interfere with one another. To address this, we designed a rotating desk for the activity room. By turning to different angles and orientations, it can quickly adapt to various scenarios — whether for studying, playing, or parent-child interaction. This flexible piece of furniture frees the space from being limited to a single function, allowing it to respond more freely to changing needs.

The master bedroom is adjacent to the child's room. Between the two, we designed a ‘connecting door’– not only adding a playful touch to the space but also allowing parents to easily keep an eye on their child in daily life. Through this door, which balances privacy and openness, the relationship between the two rooms is redefined: circulation becomes more flexible, and parent-child interaction happens naturally and spontaneously.

While the overall palette remains grounded in calm, subdued tones, we intentionally incorporated playful and dynamic details into the design. By reimagining the form of standard functional elements, we introduced irregular and engaging shapes that respond to daily routines in a more lively way.

These subtle yet distinct design touches strike a balance between calm and energy, revealing thoughtful details in unexpected corners and interactions, and bringing ongoing moments of delight.

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