The Plant House is a lower unit stacked townhouse located in a tranquil rural area in Shanghai. The owners are a couple and their 3-year-old son. The father is a fish and plant lover who wishes to have various plants growing in the house as a common scene of their daily life; and the hostess likes to cook, her dream is to have a bright spacious kitchen to share delicious food with family.

The original design concept of The Plant House is to build a living space which is warm and cozy that can meet different family members' needs. By bringing in more natural sunlight to the basement level, the dwellers are free to experience the season change and even sunlight difference in a day, able to share and enjoy the coziness provided by the sunlight and green plants together.

The disadvantage is that the basement area is separated by walls into many small spaces with very poor lighting. The designer teased out the relation between spaces and usability to make the most use of the space through re-arranged the functional areas and optimized the flowing lines. 

The designer made use of the sunlight from the garden to the basement by creating an opening on the slab of where the original living room was and converted the southwestern basement courtyard to a sunken garden available to access from ground level by adding a staircase. Indoor staircase is relocated from the northwestern corner to the open center. This improves the amenity of both upstairs and downstairs activities. 

After part of the floor slab and all lightweight partition walls are removed, basement level became more open and rich sunlight is available to be invited in, making the spaces where most of the social activities happen completely soaked in the warm cozy light.

Kitchen on the west side contains a full-length Quartz worktop and a three-meter-long island made from grey marble-effect stone, giving opportunities to family members to cook together. Living Area has the best view of the sunken garden, the only wall of this area shares a same rough stone material extended from the outdoor.

The corridor to the main bedroom has the view of the indoor courtyard which is between the study and video room on one side and washbasin countertop on the other side. Getting greenery and natural sunlight from both sides, one can easily have a pleasant mood to begin the day with.

Behind the living area is the study, it used to be the darkest corner of the house. After renovation, abundant sunlight pouring down onto the plants in the small courtyard, brightening up this corner space and offering a relaxing feeling to the environment.

Ground floor is primarily for leisure purposes. The designer envisaged a looping transportation way around the atrium void, connecting main bedroom suite, washing area, hallway, guest bedroom and kid's bedroom next to each other.