This garden is designed as a setting for family life in the long term. The spaces have been carved from the rock of the hillside as it falls to the South China Sea. The layout offers an intimate aspect, from house to garden, and a more theatrical outward aspect to the sea. In this respect it owes a debt to classical Chinese gardens, from which it also takes ideas of compression and framing. A swimming pool is convertible to a terrace for parties. Hong Kong can at times feel impermanent and thin; this garden will be durable and thick, carved from local stone and arrayed with indigenous plants. The design is influenced not only by classical Chinese but by modes as diverse as Italian art deco and American moderne.