This Home was Designed as a Still-Life Composition

In the Resurrection apartment in Taipei, considered colour and material palettes result in a space that embraces both contradictions and harmony 

In Taipei, a 35-year-old apartment has been given a new lease on life as a warm, romantic and design-led abode that marks the inaugural design collaboration between founders of multidisciplinary design firm HxH Labo, Melody and Fanwei Huang, and design and property development company Studio ERR. ‘We’re three designers with different styles and approaches, and we decided to experiment by building upon each other’s ideas and not setting a stylistic direction for the apartment. As a result, we like to think there are various elements at play in the space, they’re not exactly at odds with each other, but also not entirely harmonious, and somehow they work together,” Derek Hsu, founder and creative director of Studio ERR, says. 

Inspired by the notion of ‘Why and Why Not’, the trio conceived the home as a harmonious contrast between colours, materials and details, with the still-life paintings of Dutch artist Henk Helmantel especially influential in the design. ‘We discovered Helmantel’s work when he had his solo exhibition here in Taiwan, which happened to be while we were working on this project. We think the home is more like an interpretation of the composition of a still-life painting. In selecting the materials, we chose to think less in terms of their spatial quality, and more in terms of how they come together as a visual composition, just like a still life. The same colours at one corner are calm and deep, and at another playful and lively; the patterned fabric wall is at once both luminously Art Deco and quietly Asian. The home doesn’t seem to have a specific style, but much like a painting, there are enough elements to allow viewers to develop their own interpretation of the space,’ Hsu explains.

The two-bedroom apartment features a mix of modern materials and traditional techniques. A high-gloss dark green paint distracts from a low ceiling point, and green marble matches the popular building material used in Taipei’s public spaces during the 1960s. The majority of the furniture was sourced from local vintage stores, and is a mix of Japanese, Taiwanese and mid-century modern pieces, but notable exceptions are the sculptural HxH Labo walnut and leather ceiling light, custom-made for the project, the master bedroom dressing table designed by Studio ERR, and a painting by Hsu that hangs in the kitchen.

‘We think the varied application of materials and colours, and the ways they react to their context, enables each room to have a very strong visual contrast with another, but also a connection,’ Hsu concludes. 

Text / Babette Radclyffe-Thomas
Images / Hey! Cheese