Design Your Life –an inspirational guide to interior decorating.

You will spend the vast majority of your life in your home. Sure, much of it will be sleeping, but it’s worth investing a few kuai on the rest. It’s difficult to underestimate the importance of thoughtful home design when it comes to your overall quality of life, and while most of us won’t be able to afford our dream home, we can certainly improve the nest we’ve got. The new year offers a chance for new beginnings, so start planning, start saving, and take notes on creatively designed spaces that you visit. We found three here in Shanghai that anyone would be proud of. To find out more, we spoke to their owners about the elements of their design, the importance of space, and the cost of tasteful living. We want these homes. We hope you will too.

I-Shin Chow, 31, has been living in Shanghai for four years. Together with H Koon Wee and Eunice Seng he runs sciSKEW Collaborative, an art, architecture and design firm with offices in New York, Shanghai, and Singapore. Using their theoretical research as a platform, sciSKEW’s recent work in China focuses on the rapidly expanding high-end lifestyle market.

“One thing that’s been a constant source of inspiration for SciSKEW is the idea of the ‘story.’ We are fascinated by local histories and how they contrast with modern lifestyles. When we did this Fumin Lu apartment alteration project, we were interested in finding something that was so ‘Shanghai,’ yet at the same time contemporary. The apartment was originally built in the 1920s as a one bedroom flat. During the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, large numbers of people were moved into the city and placed in existing apartments. This flat was typical in that sense – eventually a family of six people came to live there. What intrigued us was the way the Shanghainese altered the environment to suit their new needs. The simple and practical solution was the clever use of wooden cabinetry to subdivide space.

“We stripped away the cumulative accretions of its previous inhabitants in order to get a simple, loft-like shell; then we constructed a new, seamless ‘Shanghai’ cabinet to create spatial zones appropriate for modern domesticity. All storage compartments and services, like plumbing, air-conditioning, and lightning were embedded into the continuous wooden volume. In a way, the cabinet became the only architectural necessity.

“The construction process itself went surprisingly smooth – mainly because we relied on computer modeling to do all the complex calculations necessary to create the cabinet forms. We brought in carpenters from the countryside and they put the space together in a couple of months. We were pretty much able to keep within the budget of ¥100,000 by using cheap labor and being strategic in our use of materials.

We focused on creating a fresh design space, while using simple materials and local techniques. The floor was surfaced using industrial vinyl tiles. The cabinet was constructed on-site out of basic plywood with a walnut veneer. As for the kitchen, it was done by a local kitchen company with an all-white palette which is a cheaper option to Corian stone. I was keen on a spacious and open kitchen so that it could be a place for both cooking and entertainment.

“In terms of the other interior elements, we felt that having the expressive and multi-functional cabinet meant that we didn’t have to purchase too much extra furniture. The space is jazzy enough as it is. There are, however, a few more personal touches: the pendant lamp and the candle-holders are 60s classics collected from flea markets in England.”

Berwin Tanco, 30, is an interior designer who specializes in boutique hotels, high end villas, bars, clubs, and commercial spaces. He works for the interior design company Vinyl Group, whose projects include the home deco shop Simply Life and the nightclub Bar Rouge. Currently he is working on a new Simply Thai restaurant in Xintiandi.

“Basically I designed this flat, which has a great location on Shaanxi Nan Lu, to fulfill my own personal needs. One thing I’ve learned from living in Shanghai is that this place gets cold during winter, and therefore I was determined to make my flat warm. I didn’t like the original white windows so I designed a pair of new ones. Not only do these look better, but having double windows truly keeps the dampness out. Another move I made to make sure my place was heated was to install central heating in my floor. I also chose warm wall colors, like orange and red, to get a genuinely warm feeling in my kitchen and living room.

“Second to my desire for warmness is my love of spas, which shows in the design of my bathroom. I knocked down a wall to extend the size of the room, and put in a bathtub that is so deep and wide that I can almost swim in it. It takes about an hour and a half to fill up but it’s worth it.

“For the overall feeling of my flat, I wanted something fresh and modern, mixed with old Chinese style. The cabinets, the bedroom door, and the bed are handmade elm wood pieces from Shanghai Tianlong Antique Furniture Store. They mainly make designs from the Ming and Qing dynasty.

“The furniture in the living room I have designed myself. The chairs and the table leg are made of zebra veneer wood. The stainless steel glass surface is from IKEA. The orange lamp is from House and Garden.

“My other interior decorations are stuff I have picked up overseas and from various Shanghai shops. The painting I got in Vietnam, it’s a Tran Quan Huan piece. I also have some bathroom accessories from Simply Life and porcelain soldiers that I bought at an antique market. My curtains were made at the fabric market at Cao’an Lu, and most of my kitchen I bought from a furniture store on Yishan Lu. The cost of this ‘bachelor pad,’ as I call it, even though I live with my girlfriend, was around ¥350,000-400,000. Of course you can choose a cheaper place for buying stuff, like IKEA. I think that’s what most expats, including me, do when they first move here.”

Gerhald Seizer, 33, is the CEO of Shanghai Wilddesign Co., Ltd, a German design company with 15 years of international design experience. Before moving to Shanghai in April 2004, Gerhald lived in Tokyo, Japan, where he worked for Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd.

“I looked at 70 other places before I found this apartment on Changshu Lu. Obviously, I fell for its central location, the spectacular view, and the high ceilings. I am a designer myself so in terms of the interior I had a very clear idea of what I wanted long before I moved to China.

“When I moved in, the flat had been recently renovated and the walls had been painted white. The high ceiling, the old 1920s carved wooden doors and the hardwood floor combined with the central location resulted in my home being referred to as ‘the urban castle’ amongst my friends. However, it wasn’t until all the furniture was in place that the name was fit.

“I used seven different local suppliers to get my furniture and decoration done. For my couch I used three different suppliers, someone made the wood frame, another one the cushions, and for the cover I went to the fabric market on Dongjiadu Lu. The best way to cut costs is obviously to go through the supplier’s supplier which cost me both time and patience but in the end I believe it was worth it. The cover, for instance, was only ¥300.

“The chest of drawers, as well as the living room table, the bed and the wardrobe, are all made from elm by the Shanghai Laoyou Furniture Trading Shop. The brass locks are decorated with the 12 animals symbolizing the Chinese Zodiac, a design I stumbled across during a visit to an antique shop. I highly recommend people who want to re-decorate to visit antique shops for inspiration. These shops are also good places for picking up low-priced pieces for your interior.

“My flat is quite small, so in order to maximize the space I had to come up with solutions. For instance, I had some extension legs made for my living room table, which enables me to use it as a dinner table too. And because I don’t have a guest room, the couch and its seats can be transformed into a bed.

“The bedroom is my favorite room. The wardrobe, which is made from Chinese wood has a turtle shell pattern and flower carvings in red and gold. For the bed headboard, the central carving is the Chinese character “寿” which means ‘long life.’ There are also four bats, which symbolize good fortune and four dragons that symbolize power. To light up the headboard I simply added some small lamps from IKEA in the back.

“My other lights are from House and Garden, on Caoxi Lu. Lamps in Shanghai, in general, are extremely cheap and there is a good selection to choose from. The terracotta warrior that I have in my passage took a lot of searching to find. I ended up buying it from an antique market for ¥1400.

“It took about 30 days to get all my furniture made and painted, and the total cost was ¥35,000, which I don’t consider very high as everything is handmade. If I would have done something similar in Germany, where I’m from, this would have cost me five times that price.”

By Jonna Wibelius
As featured in the February 2007 issue of SH Magazine