Diary. A compact Kyiv apartment designed by btsdesign

Architect
btsdesign, Boris Tsarenko, Lyudmila Kovenko
A type
apartment
Status
implemented
Year
2021
Size
40 m2

Designers Borys Tsarenko and Lyudmila Kovenko are not fans of kitsch or punk in residential interiors, they prefer not to use historical imitations or unjustified bright elements. The greatest pleasure for the founders of the btsdesign studio is to work in the aesthetics that are close to them personally. Japanese asceticism, large in small, depth and monochrome... In this coordinate system, the project of a compact apartment in Kyiv for a girl philologist was created.

Studio btsdesign usually works with large-scale architectural projects. And when one day, with a call from a friend, the founders of the bureau, Boris Tsarenko and Lyudmila Kovenko, received a proposal for a project of a compact one-room apartment, it became a certain challenge for the designers.

It was not easy to place an entrance hall, kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, bathroom and office with a library on an area of ​​40 square meters. But that's why the task seemed more interesting. "We saw great potential in this space," shares Boris Tsarenko, "we knew that the customer was ready to invest as much time and money as needed here." Understanding that the interior will turn out to be non-trivial, we willingly agreed."

The apartment was intended for a young girl who is finishing her studies and moving to Kyiv. Understanding all her needs, relative to the available space, the designers chose every centimeter. To increase the area, first of all, all non-capital partitions and balcony blocks were dismantled, which gained six additional square meters.

It was possible to save the height of the room by finding a solution for the arrangement of the ceiling: a minimum plasterboard profile and lamps with a minimum embedment depth were selected.

In terms of functionality, this apartment is not inferior to a full-fledged "two-bedroom". Designers did not skimp on the size of the functional areas, nor on the dimensions of the furniture, nor on the quality of the equipment. No, Lyudmila and Boris did not open a portal to another dimension, although they claim that design is to some extent illusionism, fakirism.

It's about the laws of ergonomics, the knowledge of which is acquired with work experience, and in studying the habits of your customers. The planning turned out to be rational due to the removal of "walking" spaces and unnecessary corridors. "We cut off everything superfluous, as sculptors do," explains Lyudmila Kovenko.

The main task for the designers was to make the apartment spacious and hospitable. Therefore, they followed the principle of multi-functionality. So, the wardrobe in the hall acts as a partition, the bed serves as an additional podium to the soft living room area, and the folding sofa adds two guest sleeping places. Mobile and dining area.

A round table and light plastic chairs with handles on the backs allow you to put together different seating combinations and completely move the entire area. If the dining table is moved, you can use an additional overhead ceiling lamp — it sets a new compositional center. The TV is mounted on a swivel bracket, so you can watch it from different angles.

The kitchen area has everything you need to feel like a professional chef: a cooking surface, an oven, an extractor hood, a sink, drying racks and drawers for dishes, a large refrigerator. The simplest solution would be to organize the work surface along the line - as dictated by the area and shape of the room.

But the designers went the other way and built kitchen bases and cabinets in the letter G, creating an additional section for storage (albeit shallow, but functional) and visually expanding the space.

There are no tightly sewn corners and niches in the apartment at all, but there are hiding places and secret doors. All storage spaces are closed and built-in for convenience. The hall closet has two sections for frequently used clothes and long-term storage items. In the bedroom area there is a complete wardrobe, divided into female and male halves.

In the closed closets of the bathroom there is an entire laundry room: a washing machine and dryer, a drying cabinet, a container for dirty linen, shelves for clean towels and cleaning products. The only open storage system in the apartment is a capacious bookcase, a real gift for the future housewife-philologist who has a large library.

For its organization, the designers abandoned standard radiators in favor of vertical ones (they were placed on the walls flanking the entrance to the office), thereby freeing up space under the window. A shelf with decorative lighting added a special coziness to the space, and its tectonics gave the dull window sill a different meaning. "The wall, which we used to perceive as cold and boring, here has an expressive look and radiates warmth," explains Boris.

"For the design to be interesting," says Boris Tsarenko, "it is necessary to form several angles, several points of perception in the interior." However, according to the designers, the space of small apartments works differently compared to large ones - mostly we perceive it from a sitting position. Therefore, the authors of the project preferred horizontal compositions, removing everything secondary from the field of view. They placed the most interesting interior elements at eye level. These are decorative inserts on the wall, niches and shelves with lighting.

Designers "immersed" the apartment in completely white color. Such a "wedding cake" may seem scary to many. According to Boris, clients rarely agree to such experiments, believing that "the more black keys, the brighter the music."

There are really few such interiors. And that's why this project became a great opportunity for the studio to show itself in a new direction. Lyudmila and Boris consider neutral interiors to be anti-stress, opposed to the aggressive environment that a person encounters during the day. "Light monochromatic rooms are chosen by people with a deep inner world," comments Lyudmila, "the inner brightness of a person is balanced by the atmosphere of a calm home."

The white color in the project does not seem boring or sterile. This is achieved by architectural techniques: the use of plastic, a variety of textures, alternating rhythms. Designers complemented the coolness of white with tactility of decorations and a variety of lighting. By the way, there are more than four lighting scenarios: you can choose the intensity and temperature of the lighting, and different combinations of light sources radically transform the room, adjusting the lighting to the emotional state of the owner.

But even without the work of switches in this apartment, the shades change. As? The external environment intervenes in the palette of the interior. Boris and Ludmila used the wide window of the loggia as a living picture. Depending on the season and time of day, the changing landscape outside the window enriches the interior space with new colors. "So in a small apartment, we give residents the opportunity to travel without leaving home," says Boris.

The authors of the project like to look for new techniques in design, experimenting with images, playing with the viewer's perception. Yes, an expressive wall in the living room is a separate direction. "This is such post-industrial optimism," Borys explains.

Its character shifts the perception of the residential environment towards urban aesthetics. The decorative panel for the TV has the same property. It is made according to an individual sketch of Boris, its drawing pattern "falls" into holes in places, revealing rays of light. "Such a small detail creates an interesting impression: this wall is not a dead shield, but a pleasant element," comments Borys Tsarenko.

In small apartments, we often involuntarily touch the walls, so the choice of materials in this project was based on two tasks: functional - to ensure durability and ease of care, and aesthetic - to make the surfaces seem warm.

"We immediately gave up wallpaper, ceramics, painting, any decorations that create a feeling of cold," says Boris. In the whole apartment, there is ceramic granite only in the bathroom and on the floor in the hallway, but its texture imitates fabric - it is much more pleasant to walk on such a floor. All walls are decorated with chipboard panels. Perceived as a background, they become a field for experiments: you can easily update the "decorations" of the apartment, place posters and photos, using only ordinary double-sided tape.

Of course, the interior influences a person's thinking and lifestyle, according to the designers of the btsdesign studio. "In such an apartment, it will not be possible to keep unnecessary things and junk, to live in disorder," Lyudmila shares, "the order in the space disciplines the person himself, develops new habits, balances the inner essence of the individual, structures thoughts."

The aesthetics of minimalism is very close to Boris, who admires Japanese culture. "People brought up by Buddhism are a strictly disciplined society," he says, "the rules made in ancient times are still working today. In Japanese composition there is an alternation of voids and matter, chaos and order. The same principles are also present in the interior designed by us." This interior is especially dear to the authors, because here they managed to embody their personal philosophy and attitude to life through design.

 

 

Text: Maria Golubka

Photo: Serhiy Savchenko