In Taipei, unprofessional.studio wedges a mirrored triangular volume into a 4.40-metre-wide 1970s townhouse, freeing the rest of Ximen Apartment into one continuous room.
Ximending is one of the oldest districts of Taipei, and the building sits on a small street in the kind of three-storey townhouse that went up in near-identical rows through the 1970s. Reinforced concrete frame, brick infill, pronounced beams that stay prominent despite the modest height, a direct consequence of Taiwan's earthquake-resistant construction. Many of these structures have since been torn down and replaced, leaving the layered, heterogeneous fabric that reads as contemporary Taipei. unprofessional.studio treats the outdated typology not as a problem to erase but as one to expose.
The floor plan is only 4.40 metres wide, a classic Taiwanese constraint that usually produces dark rooms, dead-end corridors and cramped communal space. The studio's answer is a single geometric move: a compact triangular volume inserted into the plan. It holds the private rooms, two bedrooms, and by pushing them into one wedge it releases everything else into a continuous communal sequence that runs the full length of the apartment, from the entrance through kitchen and dining to the living area. The layout is programmatic and climatic at once, opening a path for cross-ventilation that moderates Taipei's heat and humidity and keeps mould at bay.
The decision that defines the interior was to skip the usual suspended ceiling. The original 3.2-metre height stays fully readable, and so do the concrete beams that a dropped ceiling would have swallowed. Where the orthogonal grid of the existing structure meets the angled walls of the new insertion, the collision is left visible, a clear record of two different moments in the building's life stacked against each other.
Across the communal rooms, a grey broom-finish plaster pulls its horizontal texture along the walls, emphasising the depth and orientation of the space. The triangular volume is faced in floor-to-ceiling mirror, doubling the sofa, the paper lanterns and the marble low table until the narrow plan reads far wider than it is. Stainless steel basins curve out from the plaster in the bathroom, catching the same soft grey light.
Behind the mirrored skin, the mood inverts completely. The two bedrooms are lined entirely in walnut veneer, warm and close where the communal zone is cool and open. A round porthole window cut into the timber throws a disc of daylight across the grain, a wall-mounted reading light pools over the pillow, and a paper lantern sits on the floor beside the bed. The contrast is the point: step through the door and the temperature of the space changes.
To keep the local character of the typology inside the work, every fitting was custom-made with nearby craftsmen and workshops. Furniture, the brushed-steel toggle switches, the lighting, the kitchen and dining joinery, all built to measure over a seven-month construction on a tight budget. Within 61 square metres, the restraint is the argument. A townhouse most would replace becomes proof of how much the type still had to give.
