Apartment Living Can Be Beautiful

February 1982

中文

Chang Kuo-hsiung combines Chinese carved wood furniture with western setting.

Ho Rong-ling had a problem. She and her husband could only afford a 600 square feet apartment in the crowded city of Taipei. But Ho Rong-lin, a free lance art director coming from roomy, suburban Taichung, couldn't see how she and her husband and their 2-year-old son could crowd into such a limited space.

The apartment contractor, when they bought the apartment, offered a standard layout with five doors leading from living room, to the dining room, kitchen, bathroom and two bedrooms. "I felt uneasy with so many doors in such a small apartment. Besides, each room seemed just a little larger than a telephone booth," she says.

Ho Rong-ling's problem was not a unique one. As more and more people are abandoning their wood and brick houses in rural areas for city apartment living in Taiwan, how to arrange one's reduced living space in an economic but comfortable way is becoming important.

Ho Rong-ling's answer to her problem was to redecorate the apartment herself. The end product is a one-room apartment with a spacious, multi-functional living room. The doors to the kitchen and the bathroom are hidden in the bookshelves extending from the front door to the bedroom entrance.

But, not everyone has the design knowledge and artistic sense of Ho Rong-lin. So, to a growing number of apartment dwellers, the answer is to ask help from interior designers, who are fast becoming one of the most sought after professional groups in Taiwan.

The first group of interior designers in Taiwan emerged in the early 1960's, at the time of the first emergence of international hotels and trade fairs in Taiwan.

Home designers have had a harder struggle. Recalls veteran designer Ho Ping-chi who has been in the business for 18 years: "The first few years were terrible. People wouldn't talk about home design: They'd say 'No, thank you. I do not intend to open a coffee shop.'" To most people, applying interior design to their own homes seemed to be just a fancy gimmick.

Not until the construction boom in the mid-70's did interior designing start to appeal to a broader section of the public. By 1979, it was possible to organize the Republic of China Interior Designers' Association. The Association now has more than 200 members. All of them are professionals either with degrees in art design and architecture, or they have been in the business for more than five years.

Few members in the Association deem it necessary to advertise to attract customers nowadays. They have more than enough work for them to handle. Rather, the central preoccupations in the Association are to learn to communicate with customers and to lead the market in a correct direction. To that end, the Association has sponsored several exhibitions in the past two years on design models and on design materials. The idea is to explain the abstract concept of interior designing through concrete examples.

Most designers in the ROC Interior Designers' Association agree that practicality and economy are the first considerations when it comes to home interior design. Architect-turned-interior-designer Yao Jen-lu thinks a simple, functional home that is easy to take care of is an ideally designed home. He said, "Home should be a place one can sit down and relax. Do not fantasize your home as a part of a public place, and try to over-decorate it. Excessive colors and unnecessary furniture can only distract one's attention and make one tired." Yao Jen-lu personally hesitates to use chrome furniture, despite his admiration for simplicity because he thinks it only adds a burden for "housewives to clean and keep clean."

Color is a basic factor in home design. Red is a lucky color to Chinese, but it is also a conflicting, uneasy color to live with. Golden toned colors are often used in restaurant interiors but should not be used in family dining rooms. Golden colors make time seem to pass slowly and few people would want to live in a room with such colors, according to industrial designer Hsiao Pun-long.

A personal touch is very important. Tong Min, an antique photographer, has decorated his home with frame after frame of blowups from his family album so one can feel the warmth of a family upon entering his house.

Wang Shing-kong, an art director and an amateur antique collector, used attractive pieces from old houses and temples to do the interior of his home.

Few things are more important than the way your home is organized and decorated. Space used need not be large, but good taste should always be present.

[Picture Caption]

1. Chang Kuo-hsiung combines Chinese carved wood furniture with western setting. 2. A multifunctional living room-dining room-bar designed by Chou Jong-yen. 3. Combination living room-study designed by Lu Yu-ming.

1. The bamboo curtain & wood window give the bedroom, designed by Chang Chong-shing, a warm feeling. 2.3. Living room and study designed by Tu Wen-chen are strongly influenced by Chinese traditional designs. 4.5. Corners in Ho Rong-ling's 600 square feet apartment.

1. Lin Ming-sheng prefers to use brown-toned colors in bedrooms. 2. A combination of western furniture and Chinese artifacts is seen in Lin Ming-sheng's living room. 3. Study designed by Lu Yu-meng. 4. Chou Kuo-tsong lowered the height of the cabinets to give the room a more spacious feeling.

1. Studio designed by Ho Ping-chi. 2. The entrance of Tong-Ming's apartment. 3. Children's playroom designed by Chou Kuo-tsong. 4-6. Wong Hsing-kong's hobby of collecting folk art is manifested in his personal environment.

Children's bedrooms designed by 1. Tei Tsong-cheng, 2. Sun Huei, 3. Hsu Yi-ho, 5. Ho Ping-chi. Bright colors and functional use of space are fundamental to these designs.