“Once you step into CHENHOW MARBLE, it’s difficult to leave in a hurry. Every slab in the showroom invites you to pause and look more closely. Through its colours and natural patterns, you can sense the care that goes into CHENHOW MARBLE’s selection process. These are materials worth taking the time to observe and appreciate.”
— Ariel Wu, Design Director
Yun Cai Interior Design
A warm and welcoming smile is often the first impression Ariel Wu, Design Director of Yun Cai Interior Design (YCID), leaves on people. Over the years, she has helped countless homeowners create their ideal living spaces, often developing friendships with her clients along the way. She has even kept the same phone number throughout her career, simply because she never wants to lose touch with these “friends.”
Recently, a client from more than a decade ago contacted Ariel when the lock on their front door unexpectedly failed. “It was a beautifully crafted door with an unusual structure. On the day the lock broke, the homeowners called several locksmiths, but despite their efforts, no one could get it open. The entire family was stranded outside their own home and didn’t know what else to do, so they called me for help.”
Fortunately, Ariel was able to track down the company that had originally installed the door and arrange for them to resolve the problem that very evening, allowing the family to finally return home. Ariel is not only an experienced interior designer, but also a trusted friend her clients know they can turn to—even many years after a project has been completed.
Turning Dream Homes into Reality
A look through YCID’s portfolio reveals an extraordinary range of styles, from French Classical and Scandinavian minimalism to industrial-inspired interiors and clean, understated spaces.
Many clients see Ariel as particularly skilled at using simple, precise lines to create a sense of understated luxury, or layering contrasting materials to build a richer and more glamorous atmosphere.
Yet Ariel resists being defined by any single style or description.
“Everyone has an image of their dream home somewhere in their mind. My job is to help homeowners turn that image into reality. I don’t want to limit myself to one particular style.”
She recalls one client who arrived at a design meeting with six or seven thousand images of interiors.
“She was incredibly serious about the process and wanted to go through everything with me. As our discussions continued, her ideas about the renovation kept evolving.”
Because the client’s work required frequent travel abroad, every time she returned to Taiwan she would arrive with a large suitcase filled with interior photographs and design books collected from around the world. The pages were covered in sticky notes and annotations, each one capturing another fragment of her vision for the home she had always imagined.
Faced with this enormous collection of ideas, Ariel began sorting, categorising, and identifying patterns, gradually uncovering what the homeowner truly loved.
On the day the completed residence was photographed, the homeowner looked at her home through the camera and suddenly began to cry. She embraced Ariel and said:
“You actually created the home I’ve dreamed about since I was a child!”
For Ariel, hearing those words from a client is one of the greatest honours an interior designer can receive.
“Someone once asked me why I would take on such a difficult challenge, especially when even the homeowner admitted that she was extremely demanding. But I think empathy matters. You have to put yourself in someone else’s position. If someone could make my dream come true, I would be deeply moved too.”
Image / A fresh and inviting home designed with both storage and aesthetics in mind | YCID
Inside a Designer’s Own Home: Practicality and Storage Come First
After 15 years of helping countless homeowners create the homes they have always imagined, one question naturally arises: what does Ariel’s own home look like?
She laughs and describes herself as having the practical personality of a Virgo. For her, functionality always comes first.
That philosophy is particularly evident in the kitchens she designs.
“Cooking is one of my hobbies, so I know how important it is for a kitchen to feel intuitive and easy to use. Circulation and functionality have to be carefully considered.”
Cooking preferences and eating habits also have a direct impact on kitchen planning. A household that frequently prepares Chinese dishes over high heat, for example, will require a completely different appliance and workspace arrangement from one that tends towards lighter Western-style cooking.
“One thing never changes: the worktop has to be durable and easy to clean. For anyone who genuinely loves cooking, having a kitchen that suits the way they cook and is easy to maintain is absolutely essential.”
Outside her busy professional life, reading is one of Ariel’s greatest pleasures. She particularly enjoys the tactile experience of turning the pages of a physical book and often writes down her thoughts and reflections as she reads. An impressive wall of books in her home has become her personal repository of knowledge.
Books, however, are not her only source of inspiration. Travel is another important way for Ariel to stimulate her creativity.
Stepping away from familiar surroundings and immersing herself in different cultures allows her to broaden her perspective and experience new ways of seeing the world. Artworks discovered and collected during her travels are displayed in specially designed cabinets at home, transforming memories and traces of past journeys into distinctive visual moments throughout the interior.
Image / Designing a healthier home | YCID
Healthy Homes Designed for Long-Term Living
Aesthetics may be fundamental to residential design, and practicality essential to good planning, but Ariel believes there is another concept that deserves equal attention: the healthy home.
“Using healthier building materials does not automatically make a home healthy.”
As a Green Design-certified designer, Ariel explains that materials themselves vary significantly in their environmental and emission characteristics, while every stage of the renovation process is interconnected.
Panels, paints, adhesives, and other materials can all introduce variables into an interior environment, including emissions such as formaldehyde. For this reason, careful selection and control of materials throughout the renovation process are essential.
Once construction has been completed, Ariel explains, the home must undergo professional assessment by an appropriate Green Design certification body. Testing, documentation, and a detailed renovation record provide homeowners with tangible information about the environment in which they will live.
For Ariel, health is invaluable, and interior designers have an important responsibility to help safeguard the quality of the spaces people inhabit.
She has even personally funded Green Design training courses for designers on her team, encouraging them to pursue certification and strengthen their professional understanding of healthier renovation practices.
She compares each individual to a small screw: seemingly insignificant on their own, but capable of becoming part of a much larger force when working together.
If more people develop a sound understanding of healthier renovation practices, she believes the market will gradually move away from unsuitable or outdated materials and technologies—just as incandescent bulbs have increasingly given way to LEDs.
Image / Layering contrasting materials in the bedroom | YCID
Discovering Luxury Stone
Q: Do you think every space within a home needs to follow the same design style in order to feel cohesive?
A: I think it’s enough for shared and open-plan spaces to maintain a consistent style. Private spaces behind closed doors can follow the preferences of the people who actually use them.
Even the closest family members are still individuals, and each person can have completely different tastes.
I once designed a home where the boy’s bedroom had a rugged, highly individual industrial style, while the girl’s room was soft, pink, and princess-inspired. The two design directions were completely different, but I don’t see that as a problem at all. In fact, I think it makes the home richer and more interesting.
My clients often tell me that my enthusiasm is contagious!
Q: Stone is frequently combined with other materials in shared spaces such as living rooms. What qualities does stone bring to an interior, and what kind of design language can it create?
A: From the perspective of balancing a space, I think stone is an extremely important material.
Take a television feature wall as an example. A darker stone can create a sense of grandeur, stability, and sophistication. Replace it with a lighter stone, and the same space can immediately feel fresher and more energetic.
Whether the goal is understated elegance or a more luxurious atmosphere, stone can play an important role in establishing the character of the space.
Q: What do you see as the strengths of CHENHOW MARBLE’s stone collection?
A: I think CHENHOW MARBLE puts tremendous care into selecting every slab. You can see it in the patterns and textures—each piece has clearly been carefully chosen before being brought into the showroom.
CHENHOW MARBLE is often associated with Luxury Stone, but the collection actually includes some more accessible options as well.
I once selected a less commonly chosen stone that was relatively affordable and combined it with several contrasting materials. The final result was surprisingly striking—even the team at CHENHOW MARBLE was amazed by the visual effect we were able to create.
When materials are thoughtfully selected and combined, each one can bring out the best qualities in the others. That is how you realise their full potential.
Image / A full-height stone wall defines the double-height interior | YCID
Epilogue
Throughout our conversation, Ariel felt less like someone being formally interviewed and more like a friendly neighbour eager to share everything she had learned through experience.
At one point, our conversation even wandered into the differences between water filtration systems and what to consider when choosing one—just one example of Ariel’s enthusiasm for sharing practical knowledge beyond the world of interior design.
But Ariel is as passionate about learning as she is about sharing.
Despite her demanding schedule, she continues to enrol in courses on public speaking, etiquette, and negotiation to broaden her skills. She is also actively involved in community service through the Rotary Club and has taken on a leadership role within TnAID, hoping that professional exchange can create opportunities for people in the industry to learn from one another.
Her constant curiosity, generosity, and determination to keep growing are perhaps the qualities that best explain why so many former clients continue to see her not simply as their designer, but as a trusted friend.
