HQGK Design designed the showroom and offices of Element Plus, a furniture company located in Suzhou, China.

The Element Plus Suzhou branch is located in the national historical and cultural city of Suzhou, one of the first 24 national historical and cultural cities in China with a history of nearly 2,500 years. Suzhou Garden is a representative of China’s private gardens and is listed by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage.

Today, many ancient cities have lost their original cultural elements in the so-called development; for this Kevin Lin the Design Director of Element Plus Suzhou used a modern indoor language to restore the original culture style.

The designer optimizes the spatial planning from a single fixed working habit to the possibility to freely chooses different working spaces to improve work efficiency. The traditional office environment acquire a new value with the two-story structure, which connects different people and cultures through the internal staircase.

The variability of lighting colors, the introduction of new retro materials and plants, make Element Plus a dramatic icon for furniture products.

The choice for the design was to emphasize the “historic” values and to retain the elements of Suzhou architecture: the open and large entrance, the enlighten red bricks columns as the main entrance arch of every household.

Stepping into the interior space of Element Plus, the Suzhou style of powder walls and tiles comes to the sight. The conference rooms and manager rooms are designed as small independent residential buildings with different structures, result of a combination of fresh design and Suzhou culture.

Looking up at the cloud lights, surrounded by green plants and trees, the whole picture recall the Song Dynasty under the blue sky/white clouds in the renowned paints of the “PingJiang River”. As a step back in the history of more than 800 years the space recall the sound of the stream of the PingJiang river through the parallel pattern of the houses in the ancient and charm city of Suzhou.

Designer: HQGK Design

Design Team: Kevin Lin, Julian Zhu

Photography: Sam Wang

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