Karena Ng’s Shanghai Sanctuary
Karena Ng in her Shanghai garden.
BENEATH THE BUSTLE and noise of Shanghai lies a garden that runs on a slower clock. It belongs to Karena Ng, the Hong Kong model and actor, who shaped both the garden and her open-air home entirely around light.
On the terrace, the Atmosfera dining table is set for dinner. Its teak top will slowly turn silvery gray in the open air.
Karena with a lush arrangement of frest white flowers.
Around the table, C-Chairs pair a teak frame with a woven seat and back. Marcel Gascoin designed the classic chair in 1947.
Karena rearranged almost all of the garden’s original planting. Lavender, rosemary, and olive trees now grow among flowers in muted shades of white, purple, and gray-green.
“A garden that’s too neat makes me feel less at home,” she says. Nothing here has been manicured, and that is exactly the point.
Teak tables and woven cord sit easily in the landscape, and the rattan weathers gently under the open sky. Everything is ready for a long lunch that drifts into evening.
GUBI’s rattan P3S Outdoor chaise longue offers a lovely place to rest in the sun.
The Grace Outdoor lounge chair offers another place to rest. Tove Kindt-Larsen designed the chair in 1936, drawing on pebbles and driftwood from the Danish coast.
“A garden that’s too neat makes me feel less at home.”
The bedroom keeps the garden in view, and with it, the same unhurried calm. Overhead hangs the 1972 Pendant by Paavo Tynell.
Designed by Oeo Studio, the Carmel table takes its name from Carmel-by-the-Sea, the Californian town known as a home for many artists.
The portable Hornbæk lamp takes its cue from sails in the wind and the lanterns once carried at dusk. A ring handle makes it easy to take out into the garden if needed.
Inside, the house follows the garden’s lead. The furniture stays low and the textiles soft, while sunlight moves slowly through the rooms.
The house keeps a natural pace, and one space flows into the next. For Karena, calm arrives the moment you walk through the door.
The warmth carries on into the living room, where Paavo Tynell’s 9602 floor lamp casts its light over GUBI’s Sejour lounge chair.
Beside the doorway to the next room, the modular Keen shelving system by Linda Korndal holds ceramics and vases.
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Published on 22 Oct, 2026
