Residence 06 — Baicai Design

Residence 06

This is an apartment renovation project by Baicai Studio. The homeowner wanted to create a unique home environment that stands out in the countless cookie cutter commercial designs within a budget. With specific color schemes and custom-made requests, we kept most of the basic furnishing and used a variety of other ways to build the ambience.

Project Info:

Status: built, 2023
Area: 170 sqm
Location: Shenyang
Photography: Topia Vision

The original furnishing used a lot of stone and wooden materials of dark colors. The apartment faces southeast with medium amount of natural light. The homeowner hopes to have a space that is bright and warm. We decided to use wood veneer and beige wall-covering, combined with light-colored furniture to reverse the original ambience that's more of luxury and maturity. We wanted to build a space that matches the owner's energy, young, independent and hip.

To accommodate a large book collection, we took out the stone wall in the living room, and put in a wall of bookshelves. We used carpeting to cover the stone floors, making the space significantly warmer and softer for leisure. We redesigned the lighting scheme of the space, installing more antidazzle downlights. With this adjustment, watt usage is down 80% from the original design. The new design creates priority lighting, adds layers to the space, and maximizes coziness with dim lights when night time comes.

The kitchen area required major renovation. Keeping the original plumbing and electricity, we custom made everything else. The original dark grey floor tiles were replaced with light stone, coordinating with the rest of the home. The half-enclosed kitchen was remodeled to be an open kitchen, increasing storage room significantly. A kitchen island is placed in the middle of the area, serving both kitchen needs and as a six-people dining table. It satisfies the homeowner's interest in cooking as well as increasing its possibilities for other purposes.

We put a platform in the bedroom, that combines the functions of the bed, the bed stool and the nightstand, breaking the patterns of a traditional bedroom layout. A home shows all the sides of someone's character. Through this renovation project, we shed the texture of the original furnishing through redefining layers in the space and dematerializing. We built a universe that belonged to one.

About

Baicai Design is a multidisciplinary design practice based in New York and Shenyang, working across architecture, interiors, exhibitions, and spatial design. Its practice spans different geographies, scales, and cultural contexts.

Founded by Kaiwen Zhao, Baicai is shaped by his interdisciplinary background in design and architecture. Zhao studied Industrial Design at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Architecture at the Yale School of Architecture. He currently teaches in the Department of Industrial Design at RISD, and has previously taught at the University of Colorado Denver, lectured at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and served as a guest critic at Syracuse University.

Baicai approaches space beyond the conventional boundaries of interior design, bringing together architectural and product design thinking to address spatial questions. Through different scales of intervention, we explore the relationships between space, objects, and human behavior.

New York:
540 Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY, 11201

Shenyang:
A07International Software Park, Shenyang, China

baicaidesignoffice@gmail.com

Awards

FRAME Wellness Space of the year Shortlisted
2026

Paris Design Awards Winner
2026

MUSE Design Awards Gold Winner
2026

Dezeen China Rising Firm of the Year
2025

POSITION Award China Best 100 Young Architect
2024

Guangzhou Design Week 40 Under 40
2024

AD China 100 YOUNG
2022-2024

Architizer Best Young Interior Design Firm Special Mention
2024

Forbes China 30 Under 30
2023

FRAME Small Residential of the year Shortlisted
2023

FRAME Award Best Emerging Designer Nominee
2023

APIDA Design Award Excellence Award
2023

FRAME Pop-up Store of the Year
2022

FRAME Window Display of the Year Shortlisted
2022

WYDF TOP 100 Designer
2022

Dezeen Award Shortlisted
2022

Architecture Masterprize Best of The Bests
2022

AD China 100 YOUNG
2020-2022

Architecture Masterprize Honorable Mention
2022

KUKAN Design Award Shortlisted
2022

DNA Award Winner in Workplace Design
2022

DNA Award Honorable Mention in Workplace Design
2022

DNA Award Honorable Mention in Showroom Design
2022

K-Design Award Winner
2022

Novum Design Award Gold Award
2022

Novum Design Award Silver Award
2022

IDA Design Award Honorable Mention
2022

FRAME Best of the Month
2022 April

Design for Asia Award Bronx Award
2021

Design for Asia Award Excellence Award
2021

IDEA Design Award Finalist
2021

Golden Pin Design Award Winner
2021

Golden Pin Design Award Honorable Mention
2022

Press

Baicai Design’s work has received international media coverage across architecture, design, fashion, and culture. The studio has been featured in publications including Gestalten, INTERIORS, AD China, FRAME, Interior Design China, My Home, and id+c, alongside leading global platforms such as Dezeen, Leibal, Architizer, Divisare, Vogue, ELLE China, Yatzer, Cosmopolitan, gooood, Archilovers, Designverse, and Archello.