Xiamen, Fujian, China · Yijia Q
Dream Renovation Project, Xiamen
Part of a televised home-makeover project: a compact FRANZ lift retrofitted into an occupied Xiamen home, restoring full access to every floor for the whole family.
- Location
- Xiamen, Fujian, China
- Building
- Townhouse retrofit
- Travel
- 3 floors, 3 stops
- Model
- Yijia Q
- Completed
- 2025
- Cabin finish
- Matte white steel, warm LED cove lighting
The challenge
A three-storey home with an ageing parent on the top floor, no lift shaft, and no possibility of moving out during the works.
Our approach
The compact Yijia Q went into the stairwell void on its own self-supporting frame, so no load-bearing wall was touched and the family stayed in the house throughout.
This Xiamen townhouse came to us through a televised renovation programme, and it carried the constraint that makes most retrofits fail: the family could not move out, and the building had no shaft.
The Yijia Q was specified for exactly this situation. Its self-supporting aluminium frame carries its own loads, so the stairwell void could be used without touching a single load-bearing wall, and the 100 mm pit sat directly on the existing slab. Deliveries were staged floor by floor to keep the stairs usable in the evenings.
The result gives the owners’ mother her own independent route to the top floor for the first time in years — the outcome the family had asked for from the start.
