When renovating an existing condo, it is tempting to use a new-build show apartment as the brief: familiar finishes, neatly coordinated furniture and a room for every standard function. But a renovation offers the opportunity to ask a more personal question. What would make this home unmistakably yours?
A brief with a point of view
Crystal Gardens is a 300 sqm duplex in Bangkok’s Sukhumvit Soi 4, designed by regroup architecture and completed in Q3 2024. Its James Bond-inspired brief introduces concealed doors, sliding bookshelves and a hidden bar. These features give the home a sense of discovery.
A strong brief can be quieter than this one. It might centre on cooking with friends, collecting books, making music or working at home. The useful part is specificity: it gives the design a reason to take one direction rather than follow a familiar showroom formula.
Make the journey through the home memorable
At Crystal Gardens, a floating staircase rises above an entrance garden to the upper-floor private spaces. The living area connects to a terrace with a pool, while an upstairs lounge contains the concealed bar.
For a renovation, consider the sequence as carefully as the individual rooms. What do you see when you arrive? Where does the space open up? Where can someone withdraw from a gathering? A deliberate change in openness or a well-placed threshold can make a home memorable without adding more objects to it.
Let a room do more than one job
The project includes a multi-purpose room that can serve as a bedroom, office or game room. This gives a particular space several possible roles rather than fixing its identity to one activity.
That is a useful question for a smaller condo too. Does the occasional guest room need to remain closed and unused for most of the year? Could a workspace also belong to the living area? Test furniture positions, privacy and everyday access before deciding how permanent the boundary should be.
Use surprise where it earns its place
A concealed door is most convincing when it also solves a practical problem: keeping a storage wall continuous, giving a room privacy or allowing a shared space to change its use. Before adding a theatrical detail, ask how often it will be used and whether it makes the home easier to live in. Character should survive an ordinary weekday.
Give the existing condo its own brief
The ambition need not be to reproduce Crystal Gardens or to make every room unusual. Choose the qualities that matter most to you, then develop a coherent layout around them. One generous shared room, a useful retreat or an unexpected connection can do more for a home’s identity than a collection of unrelated features.
Newness is one way to present a property. An existing condo can offer another: a home with a clear point of view, shaped around the people who use it. That is the opportunity to explore before selecting finishes.
Character in a CondoGuru review
Our floorplan rating considers spatial character: room relationships, flexibility, openness and distinctive transitions. Interior style, decoration, materials and amenities are outside that score. This article explores renovation design more broadly; it does not assign Crystal Gardens a floorplan rating.
Explore the Crystal Gardens project by regroup architecture for the full description and image gallery.
Written for CondoGuru. Project and photography by regroup architecture.