BQF DESIGN began Taihu Ruyuan Residence, a private apartment in Wuxi, China, by taking a bedroom away. The original plan had four. The Wuxi studio, led by designer Pan Hong, reduced it to three and returned the recovered floor area to the rooms the household shares. The balcony was enclosed and absorbed into the interior as part of the same move.

Renovations of family apartments usually push the other way, adding a study or a guest room wherever the plan allows. Here the subtraction made it possible to reorganize the living room, dining area, kitchen, and tea room as one connected sequence. Walls and door openings no longer carry the whole job of separating functions. Sightlines, daylight, and circulation run across the boundaries between them, so activity in one area stays visible from the next and people pass between rooms without the sense of leaving one for another.

In the living room, a low platform sofa replaces the sofa and armchairs that a conventional layout would arrange for receiving guests. Sitting closer to the floor drops the visual center of gravity of the room and brings the occupant into a more direct line with the view outside, the daylight, and the neighboring spaces. The seating is not oriented toward a single focal point. One person can read at one end while another rests or talks at the other, and someone wanting time alone does not have to leave the room to find it.

The tea room can be opened to the living area or closed off from it. Open, it becomes part of the larger shared space. Closed, it works as a separate room. A long table runs through it and is used for tea, reading, meals, and conversation, so the purpose of the room shifts with whoever is sitting at it.

The kitchen and dining area were merged more closely with the rest of the home, keeping cooking and eating within reach of the living room and tea room. Although the plan centers on a tea room and floor-level seating, the interior carries little of the ornament typically used to signal an Eastern style. Its character comes from proportion, material, and daylight moving through rooms that are no longer sealed off from one another.