Designers preserved historical details to the maximum to create a modern, functional interior with history.
Designers designed an apartment in a 1936 house for a young couple of programmers. The customers wanted to preserve as much as possible the historical elements of the interior that had been preserved from the time the house was built – doors, windows and ceiling cornices. In general, the interior should be comfortable for modern life, bright and with a minimum amount of furniture. The main condition is a small budget.
The layout is quite simple, but it was developed by the architect when designing the house. The previous residents combined the bathroom and toilet into one room. Considering the small area and number of rooms, it was decided to use a large room as a bedroom with a work space for the customer, who works from home. The second room, narrower, serves as a living room with the customer’s desk.
“The main feature of this interior is its history and atmosphere. The house is located in the green part of the Petrograd side, saturated with history and itself is a work of art in the neoclassical style. The historical interiors of the apartments were made in the same style: parquet, high windows and doors with transoms, strict cornices on the ceiling. We wanted to preserve all this and make it the main highlight, the elements around which the entire interior is built,” say the designers.
The designers tried to create a comfortable space for modern life, despite the fact that it is an old building. Therefore, all materials were chosen for reasons of practicality and conciseness. The walls are painted; white was chosen as the main color, creating a feeling of light, airy space – like a canvas on which an artist paints a picture, applying color strokes. Accent colors are complex blue, emerald, blue-lilac. The parquet had already been replaced by the previous owners, so in order to save money, it was left, sanded and varnished.
We partially saved on rough materials and work, since we decided to sacrifice perfectly aligned walls for the sake of preserving historical doors and windows. It even added some charm and liveliness to the interior.
“In order to place all the customer’s plants and necessary books in the work areas, we designed lightweight open shelving made of metal, connected to each other using cables. Metal was chosen for reasons of practicality: if water gets in, the surface will not deteriorate over time. The shelves are attached to the wall, but for greater structural stability we secured them with cables attached to a metal frame at the top. The design turned out to be light and at the same time functional,” the designers share.
“We decided to make cabinet furniture from plywood. We like to use natural materials in our projects and find interesting combinations that are not obvious and create a feeling of living space. For us, plywood is just such a material; despite its functionality and durability, it has a beautiful texture that you want to look at, and a surface that is pleasant to run your hand over. At the same time, in our opinion, it goes well with neoclassicism,” say the designers.
The ceiling chandelier in the bedroom is made in the form of many bendable elements that can be placed in the space in any way. The designers decided to add a little creativity to the austere interior and chaotically but artistically twisted the spirals of the lamp until they achieved a harmonious composition.
For the bathroom we chose a combination of neutral white tiles with bright accent tiles. The patterns on the tiles seem to be hand-painted with paints, and the shades bring all the colors of the interior together. “The ceilings were 3.2 meters high, so to get away from the feeling of a well, we divided the walls into two levels, tiles and paint. The upper part of the walls, together with the ceiling, was painted a dusty lilac shade, visually dissolving the upper boundary of the room,” share the authors of the project.
Photo of the apartment before renovation
