Chinese architects Lee Chul and Liu Jing punched through the partitions of this small Beijing apartment to create a more open-plan layout with only one door (+ slideshow).

Chul renovated the 90-square-metre flat for his wife, who wanted a more flexible layout that would also create the illusion of greater space.

Walls were knocked through and the space redivided to decrease the scale of utility rooms such as the kitchen and bedrooms in favour of larger living areas. The bathroom is now the only room in the apartment with a door.

"The design tries to find a kind of open-plan living space to release the programme and traffic, and motivate more possibilities between user behaviour and living space," said Chul and Jing. The project is named An Apartment Without Centre ? a reference to the architects' desire to shift the focus from the living room as the heart of the home and create a more free-flowing space.

"Spatial organisation can influence people's behaviour," they said. "In the city most Chinese people live in apartments that are designed by commercial companies. In this kind of apartment most family life happens in the living room, which becomes the centre of gravity."
At first, the client's family didn't understand the desire for a more open-plan layout, Chul told Dezeen, because the concept is only just catching on in Beijing.

"Most Beijing people are not used to open-plan living, they think privacy is very import...