How interior designers make micro-apartments in Hong Kong feel bigger than they are

Designers are forever trying to make micro-apartments in Hong Kong feel big: their innovations include platform beds and underfloor storage

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A harbour-view flat in Kowloon was designed by LAAB to be streamlined and clutter-free. Designers are finding increasingly innovative ways to do more with less in small Hong Kong apartments. Photo: Otto Ng

Peta Tomlinson

Published: 1:15pm, 30 Jun 2024Updated: 5:47pm, 23 Sep 2024

Hong Kong apartments are notoriously compact, and yet we seem always to have more stuff to fit in them. How do one or more occupants accommodate all of life’s necessities without creating domestic chaos?

Many ideas for living large in a tiny home are not new, but innovative tweaks can certainly enhance the outcome. Take underfloor storage.

Stepping up to a platform with customised compartments underneath allows a horizontal wardrobe to be built in a bedroom that has little wall space to spare.

So when Norman Ung, co-founder of Design Eight Five Two (DEFT), had just 266 sq ft (25 square metres) to work with inside his micro flat in Tai Wai, in the New Territories, a platform was an obvious solution.

He did not stop there. To achieve his goal of creating the same comfort and space afforded by larger homes, Ung made the platform transformable.

A platform that aligns with a bay window affords this tiny Tai Wai flat space and comfort. Photo: DEFT

Occupying almost all of the open-plan layout, the platform holds a mattress on one side and a wall unit and reading nook on the other. In the middle, a hydraulically operated table rises from the elevated floor, negating the need for either a dining setting or a desk 24/7.