Inside a Montessori-friendly family home in Hong Kong that does not cramp the parents’ style

Asked to create a toddler-friendly home in an L-shaped, 1,200 sq ftflat overlooking Happy Valley Racecourse in a way that did not cramp the parents’ style, Lorène Faure and Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui, co-founders of interiors company Bean Buro, faced an unusual challenge.

“I’m a Montessorian,” says mother and homeowner Jennifer Yu, a Canadian parenting consultant who wanted a home in which her 22-month-old son could access learning materials easily.

The Montessori method of education, based on a child-centred, self-directed learn­ing model, was developed at the turn of the 20th century by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori. Her approach to education calls for a learning environ­ment that is “spacious, open, tidy and pleasing in appearance”. Furniture needs to be proportional to a child’s height and size.

“We literally had a fake doll that we were using to make sure he can access every­thing,” says Yu, recalling the renovation. “We met Lorène and Kenny at the end of December [2016, the same year Yu and her husband, a Macanese investment manager, bought the flat],” says Yu. “The third week of January [the next year], we found out we were pregnant.”

It may have been kismet but it also tested the designers. “The biggest challenge was the way we had to integrate the child’s and adult activities seamlessly in one family apartment,” says Kinugasa-Tsui.

“Our design narrative was a cocoon-like space,” Faure says about the use of timber ceilings in the living room and master bed­room to create a calming, cosy family home.