Life.Culture.Discovery.

Reimagining what an urban flat can be in Hong Kong’s Tin Hau

A lawyer’s 700 sq ft hideaway, minutes from his family home, boasts an atypical floor plan that allows him to relax and work

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The living area of a Hong Kong flat designed by Gary Chang of the Edge Design Institute. Photo: Christie Chau

Published: 8:00pm, 22 Jul 2025

In a city where space is at a premium and apartments often follow a rigid template, one homeowner in Tin Hau has reimagined what an urban flat can be.

The 700 sq ft apartment, built in 1976, once conformed to a familiar sequence: living room, two bedrooms and a narrow corridor leading to a compact kitchen and bathroom. But when Karl Laing, a Hong Kong lawyer who uses the unit as his pied-à-terre, teamed up with Edge Design Institute founder Gary Chang Chee-keung, the space was transformed into something far more personal.

Bedroom and workplace. Photo: Gary Chang

Laing bought the flat 12 years ago, with a tenancy agreement in place. When the lease expired, he seized the chance to tailor the space to his own needs. “This is my private club and my workspace now,” he says.

With his primary residence – where his wife and children live – only five minutes away, Laing’s one-bedroom retreat serves as a venue for entertaining, working and, crucially, housing his collection of art, books and audio library.

“For me, a big home, a family house, is always a compromise for design. This is the only place where I know where my things are,” he says in jest.

Chang – renowned for his experimental Domestic Transformer unit, whose tiny floor plan is able to shape-shift in innumerable ways – suggested erasing traditional room divisions. The result encourages movement through an interconnected sequence of spaces, veering away from the traditional “LDK” (living, dining, kitchen) layout.

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