Residence JL by Memegaga Design Studio
In Taiwan, where collective housing often arrives with fixed service cores and tight constraints, Residence JL reframes limitation as opportunity.
Designed for a couple and their three cats, the home treats vertical space as a shared habitat rather than a simple stack of rooms. With generous glazing and an open, double-height volume, daylight becomes a constant presence across both levels, shifting through the interiors and giving everyday routines a quiet sense of dimension.
This approach closely reflects the philosophy of Memegaga Design Studio, a Taiwan-based practice co-founded by four classmates and long-time friends, now marking its tenth year. The studio is committed to reading the character of each inhabitant and shaping spaces through strategic planning and a careful allocation of resources. The work avoids decorative excess and focuses on minimalist planes, disciplined lines, and finely judged details to clarify what matters in daily life. Residence JL brings that mindset into focus, balancing practicality with atmosphere, and translating the owners’ relationship with their pets into spatial logic.
From the outset, the project needed to accommodate immovable conditions. Plumbing stacks and kitchen utility lines were dictated by the base building. Within these boundaries, Memegaga set a clear objective, a definitive separation between public and private domains. The lower level would support social life, and the upper level would serve as a secluded retreat. The ground level serves as the social realm, combining living, dining, and kitchen functions around a central island that supports hosting and communal use. Above, the upper level is deliberately more secluded, housing the master bedroom, entertainment room, and master bathroom as a sanctuary from long commutes and high-pressure urban schedules.
At the center, a steel spine staircase anchors the home as both circulation and sculpture. Its industrial presence introduces a measured tension against the softer material field around it, while the railing and wooden treads catch sunlight as it travels downward, casting layered shadows that change throughout the day.
Cohabitation is treated as a design driver, particularly upstairs. The entertainment room is formed as a floating wooden box, edged with a glazed band lifted 40 centimeters above the floor. This move extends sightlines and bridges the height difference between human and feline perspectives, allowing interaction across multiple planes. The cats are not simply accommodated. Their roaming and observation are anticipated as part of the life of the space. Over time, their repeated paths register as subtle, shifting traces in how the interior is perceived.
The same attentiveness appears in smaller moments. Near a window, three translucent apertures in a cabinet side panel softly illuminate a niche dedicated to a memorial for a beloved pet, letting changing daylight mark morning and evening with understated warmth. After dark, lighting is treated as a layered system, combining wall lamps, recessed fixtures, linear lighting, and pendants to create different moods across the home.
In the master bedroom, privacy and daylight are carefully balanced through folding window panels that open and close the elevation, paired with adjustable-angle louvers that modulate brightness and shadow density. Their geometry echoes the triangular lines of the kitchen ceiling, extending a consistent design language without any unnecessary display.
Material decisions reinforce this sense of restraint while meeting the realities of climate and daily wear. Building on the owners’ existing LOFT-influenced furnishings, the palette stays low-chroma, grounded in muted greys, grey-white walls, and deep-stained timber tones. Birch wood is used as the primary timber for its structural reliability and moisture resistance, a practical response to Taiwan’s humidity, while still offering visible grain and warmth even in a darker stain. For durability in high-contact zones, quartz countertops and high-performance laminate flooring provide surfaces that can handle constant movement, easy maintenance, and the friction of shared living with pets.
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