Haruki's apartment

location: Mariupol, Ukraine
function: apartment
program: 35.7 sq.m
status: preliminary project
client: private person
authors: Larisa Gusakova 
3D visualizations: Aleksandr Gusakov, Larisa Gusakova
date: winter 2015

project description and objectives:
One bedroom apartment with total area of 35.7 sq.m. is located on the first floor of a two-storey brick building in the historic center of the city. These houses are also called "pre-revolutionary". Once a printing office of the city's first newspaper was situated in this very apartment, then it was a typical multifamily flat, and in recent years — an office.
The current owners, a young couple, chose the format of a modern city apartment, spacious and bright, with a minimum of furniture and a maximum range of functions.

design solution:
The main trump card, which solved all the space — ceiling height (4.0 m), which was slightly increased by the dismantling of the old flooring (curve wood floor, drop in different corners amounted to 0.15 ... 0.20 m).
Thus, main volume was resolved on a vertical rather than horizontal; functions were distributed according to the purpose of premises: the first level — representative, the second — private, the connected with the help of stairs and a common second light.

The biggest part of the area is in a lounge zone, which actually changes its appearance very quickly and easily, depending on which task it has. The owners of the apartment are very sociable people, they have a lot of friends and a lot of reasons to meet them, including meetings at home.

The interior program assumes the following scenarios:
- a formal dining (8-10 pers.);
- buffet table, house party (6-8 pers.);
- cinema hall for a small company (4-5 pers.);
- overnight stay for friends (2-3 pers.)

Required items for these modifications are located (hidden) in the cells of a huge cabinet, which occupies the entire space from floor to ceiling in the main room. Its lower part is hiding dismountable table and folding chairs, central — cushions and futons to sleep, everything else — for personal items, ladder roller allows to reach the uppermost cells in any part of the cabinet.