Silent Living
Silent Living is a minimalist apartment located in Henan, China, designed by X-LAB SPACE. The fourth collaboration between studio and client family arrives at a different threshold – where design must address not youthful aspiration but the contemplative rhythms of later life. X-LAB SPACE approaches this residential project through the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto, translating the photographer’s atmospheric seascapes into spatial qualities that privilege stillness over stimulation. The concept of Silence Living emerges not as absence but as careful orchestration – light behaving like clouds and waves, materiality reduced to essential gestures.
Black and white establish the tonal framework, but the palette’s real achievement lies in how it manages luminosity for aging eyes. White surfaces amplify natural light perception while strategic black elements absorb glare, creating what the studio terms a friendly art space. This is not decorative inclusivity but functional empathy embedded in material choice. The lighting strategy reinforces this approach – sources concealed within architectural volumes keep ceiling planes as uninterrupted as walls and floors. Light appears without fixture, maintaining the space’s meditative calm.
The Nanyangtai transforms into dedicated sunbathing territory, fitted with seating for sustained stillness. Window treatments filter incoming light into softness, extending the studio’s attention to how illumination enters and moves through the residence. Furniture selection follows the spatial color logic while introducing curved edges – a dual function addressing safety concerns and visual gentleness. These radiused corners temper the orthogonal rigor, making the minimalist vocabulary more inhabitable for bodies navigating space with changed physicality.
Symmetry anchors the dining and living areas, where floor tile patterns interweave in what the studio describes as steady fashion. Classic luxury pieces occupy these zones, their details communicating emotion through restraint rather than elaboration. The north balcony becomes meditation and tea space, designed around the homeowner’s collection of objects the studio characterizes as rough yet delicate, possessing antiquity. These pieces – manifestations of accumulated experience and refined taste – create an atmosphere of mistiness that cannot be replicated, only earned through years of looking and selecting.
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