President's Prize, HKIA Annual Award 2016/17
HK Best & Gold, Global Design Awards (HKDA) 2016
Winner, Good Design Award Japan 2016

The Bridged-House design links two existing houses of different eras and styles as one, spatially, aesthetically and spiritually, while keeping the identity of two houses for the two generations. The two volumes are separated horizontally by the existing swimming pool; and vertically by a three-meters level-change between their living room floors.

The landscape plinths are demolished to form a generous Middle Garden expanding the site’s depth. The swimming pool, with all enclosing walls taken down, overflows to form a backdrop for the Garden.

A new steel bridge connecting the houses at the second level, floats above the Middle Garden. This daily path of meeting, together with the Middle Garden and the pool, forms the focal point of the house.

The houses’ original marble cladding were stripped off, and replaced with white paint and big rectangular windows. Timber parapet-tops add highlights to the neutral color, together with the green hues of the surrounding trees.

Internally, the first floor is expressed as the ‘ground’ datum – light-grey stone flooring extends towards the landscape, with flowing water as the background for dining.

Timber steps lead to the intimate ‘home’ datum - the parents’ house has a serene brown timber flooring, and the kids’ a lively yellowish one. The two houses overlook each other, like neighbors in a town, and linked up by the bridge.

Stairs are expressed as a gallery of form and light. The existing structure is manipulated with new balconies and window openings to form continuous lines or patches of forms. Tailor-made handrails emphasize the sense of touch. Above, the skylights are designed to hide the glass frames, to blur the boundary between inside and outside.

The penthouse is topped with fair-faced concrete slab, of a rough texture and cement color that ties back to nature, and echoes the fair-faced concrete fence wall one first encounters before going into the house.



Location: Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
Client: Tang’s family
Year: 2013-15
Status: Completed
Program: Residential
Team: Ida Sze, Billy Chan, Michelle Tam, Kenneth Wong
Collaborators: Authorized Person, Structural Engineer: David S.K. Au & Associates Ltd.
Building Services Engineer: K’fan Services Co.
Quantity Surveyor: Beria Consultants Ltd.
Main Contractor: P&T Construction and Engineering Co. Ltd.
Fitting-out Contractor: Art Construction Limited