BELYIE NOCHI 38 | AE Architects

We designed this well-lit and spacious apartment for a young woman using natural materials.

Our goal was to create a minimalistic and modern-looking interior design that wouldn’t be loud and flashy; elegancy and practicality permeate the entire project.

We didn’t choose the layout; the developer did. Yet, their decision to place an internal load-bearing wall at the center of the apartment turned out to be a welcome one; we created a ring layout around it. The bedroom leads to the kitchen, which leads to the bathroom and entrance hall – and vice versa. The customer asked us to wall off a portion of the bedsit to create a proper bedroom; we placed a semi-blind wall and a wood slat room divider that lets the natural light into the cube-shaped living room.

The owner of the apartment likes to throw parties and doesn’t like conservative get-togethers at the table; that’s why there isn’t one. Instead, we outfitted the kitchen with a bar counter, incidentally creating another kitchen surface and expanding the storage space.

As for the walls, we painted them in matte colors.

We chose to lay the entrance hall, kitchen, and bathroom floors with glossy porcelain tiles that look like natural stone.  The bedroom and living room have highly water-resistant laminate flooring. The apartment is decorated in monochromatic colors with touches of gray and black here and there that the wood lining and its warm color palette balance out.

For the owner to store the bulk of her belongings, we placed a closet in the entrance hall. For home clothes and little things there are a narrow cupboard and bedside cabinets. The living room open storage stand is an ideal place for TV peripherals to sit on – just as rectangular cells opposite the bed are a perfect place to keep books in. The kitchen has a closet for household items that doubles as a washer hide, while the bathroom has a built-in cabinet with access to plumbing above the toilet.

Another interesting aspect of the apartment design is its lighting. The inside is well-lit during the day. For the nighttime, there are several options we custom engineered: ceiling lighting and spotlighting of the wood-lined cube-shaped living room. Spotlights above the couch can be turned on independently, while hanging lights above the bar counter have several color temperature settings.

The bathroom mirror has built-in lights, and the bathroom itself has decorative lighting that helps induce the feeling of privacy.