In China’s large cities, where urban density and relentless pace are the norm, this apartment offers an alternative: a domestic refuge, calm and warm, “with a great capacity for hospitality,” as its owner Xiaoxiong puts it, who also runs a fashion select shop. The constant street traffic and the ground-floor position set up a concrete tension: how to keep the intimacy of a home without closing it off from the outside?

DAMO’s answer is to absorb the old balcony into the living room, extending it toward the outside and turning the façade into a surface of exchange between house and city. The windows are covered with lattices that screen without sealing. Framed views from inside work as a living green painting, and the mix of natural materials and warm tones bring the outside in. The home as somewhere to slow down, not shut out.

When night falls, artificial light takes over gradually, distributed across different points and heights. Básica M1, Básica Mínima, Cestita Batería, Sylvestrina, Babel, and the TMM wall sconce are the designs that accompany this second life of the home among filters, reflections and transparencies, unfolding at a slower pace than the street outside.