Better by design

Hambrook launched Elliott Studios last year, with his wife and a third Chinese business partner. They have worked on numerous luxury projects in China.

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Meanwhile, more new properties are adding character by mixing styles or cultures from East and West, according to Margaux LHermitte, executive director of NACO, a firm of architects based in Shanghai.

"More and more people travel on a regular basis, thus their world is already a mix of many cultures. The home is the best place to reflect that," she said after Shanghai hosted the Luxury Properties Showcase expo in December. "Shanghai is a great platform for new ideas, and quality grows every month."

Hambrook, who is in his mid-30s, launched Elliott Studios last year with his wife Faye Dai and a third Chinese business partner. Due to the red tape and time involved, he recommends this avenue for any foreigner planning a small start-up with limited capital and legal representation. He has in total about seven employees.

"Having a Chinese partner and starting a Chinese company is definitely the way to go. If it weren't for that, we'd still be setting things up now," he said.

"Organizing a professional work flow is also a challenge and takes a long time. Before, I could just draw designs and hand them over to my draughtsman. Now I need to get them approved by the Chinese Design Institute to get the proper certification."

On one shelf of his bleached white studio sits a large, half-painted canvas of a blue and white workshop - Hambrook's vision of how he wants his "office" to look when they expand. The building, which houses a cluster of design-oriented and architectural firms, sits on a lazy bend on the river. Suzhou Creek can be seen snaking past its large curved windows.

"Our overriding philosophy is to create a natural look and to avoid things that look fake, which is why we now customize our own materials and fabrics to make designs out of materials that people haven't really seen before," he said, explaining how a marble tile in his library was acid washed to create a unique mottled effect.