7 m² of Materials & Compositions | Dalit Lilienthal Interior Design Studio

This project focuses on a single room in an apartment in Tel Aviv, where a young man resides. This room is just 7 square metres (75 ft) but the client wanted it to function as his study workspace, and as a guest room as well. So the new design had to accommodate a regular size single bed, storage space and a large desk.

Basic materials were chosen - concrete, steel and wood.

In order to give this small room a spacious feeling, having all these numerous functions, a mostly open steel shelving system was designed, part of it with steel doors. This serves as a storage space, clothes cupboard for guests, and of course can be used by the client for storage in general. The shelves themselves are made from wood painted a transparent black, letting the wood cracks come through. The steel structure was left unpainted, joints exposed, achieving a raw effect. This gives it an opposed quality of being simultaneously an airy lightweight design and at the same time using this tough material. Altogether these elements emphasize and play with interesting compositions.

Perpendicular above is another storage unit, this one made of MDF painted a light grey, positioned high enough above the bed so that it gives the person laying down a sense of space and at the same time an intimate feeling.

The bed itself has also a large storage underneath, designed especially to store spare folding chairs as the client enjoys entertaining quite a lot. It has also room for a vacuum cleaner and more objects.

The desk is large, made of concrete with two steel frames as legs. It is a very comfortable size desk, positioned beside the window, allowing a pleasant work mode, always having lovely daylight poor in and air come through.

When the client approached me to plan and design this small room, I took into consideration the materials used throughout the apartment and naturally the client's wish for practicality mixed with raw materials.

Photographer: Gidon Levin