Hong Kong Architect Turns Shoebox Apartment into 24 rooms 

relevant to those looking at urban density, residential London and architecture of necessity for their design projects - (following on from Henry's previous Post)

Chang, 46, turned the flat he has occupied since the age of 14 into what he calls his “domestic transformer,” and in the process offered a vision for how one of the world’s most densely-populated cities could better use its limited space.

“The key idea is that everyone could look into their home more carefully and into how better to optimize their resources, because space is a resource,”

“There is no use making your home as if it is a perfect show flat but at the same time never using the space,” 

Chang has tackled the lack of room by replacing the flat’s walls with a series of accordion-like sliding units, hung from metal tracks on the ceiling, that can be moved about to form a variety of configurations.

Growing up in the flat with six others, Chang had to be flexible.

“I have three younger sisters, so we all lived here. Originally there were three bedrooms, a living room and a dining room,” he said. “My sisters occupied one room, my parents another room and the third was actually not for me, it was for an outsider — my parents sub-let it to somebody else to get more revenue. So actually I slept in the living room.”

Chang still lives in the flat, and has spent his adult life reinventing his small corner of a 19-story 1960s tower block in Hong Kong’s bustling Sai Wan Ho district.

The architect believes his innovations can show even the poorest families how to improve their domestic arrangements and is determined that his book My 32m² Apartment: A 30-Year Transformation will influence new housing.

SOURCE : firewireblog.com/