The interior of the penthouse with panoramic windows and access to an open terrace combines loft and minimalist styles.
Penthouse on the 20th floor, with panoramic windows and access to an open terrace – the embodiment of urban poetry and ideas about the comfort of modern city life. It is not surprising that the apartment was so liked by a person of a creative profession. To make the space sound easy and positive, revealing its potential, the now fashionable loft, and minimalism were chosen as aesthetic guidelines.
The owners of the apartment are an energetic married couple, both of whom value freedom and communication, creative pursuits, in design they prefer laconic urban aesthetics with loft elements. To create an environment that matches their lifestyle, they needed a large studio that combined the living room, dining room, kitchen, and entrance hall, where they could comfortably relax, enjoy beautiful views, host friends, and have parties with live music.
In addition, we needed a separate bedroom with a dressing room, an office (also serving as a guest room), and two bathrooms, the masters and the guests. An important wish concerned the budget, which did not involve expensive finishes and furniture, and complex architectural solutions.
Redevelopment
The apartment has an L-shaped outline, there are no load-bearing supports inside. Panoramic and ordinary windows face all four sides, and there is an exit to an open terrace on the roof. A loggia is inscribed in the inner contour of one of the sleeves. In accordance with the wishes of the owners, a studio was designed along a long wall with panoramic windows.
The entrance hall has acquired an L-shape, from which you can get into the guest bathroom, an office with a triangular glazed bay window (the rooms are located opposite each other), and into the bedroom complex that occupies almost the entire sleeve with an adjacent master bathroom and a spacious dressing room. The studio space has acquired a C-shape, consistently connecting a spacious entrance area, living room, dining room, and kitchen. From the latter, there is access to the terrace.
Repair
A screed was completed in the apartment, new partitions were erected from foam blocks, and the walls were plastered and painted, partially lined with brick-like gypsum tiles. The floors were finished with laminate (living areas) and porcelain tiles (entrance hall, loggia and terrace, both bathrooms), these areas were equipped with electric heating in the premises. The ceilings were plastered and made stretched (fabric in the studio, bedroom, PVC in the bathrooms) and lowered to different heights – not only for the sake of aesthetic impression (for example, level drops were made along the windows so that the curtain guides were not noticeable), but also to hide the electrical wiring and communication pipes located under the ceiling above the entrance area and bathrooms (in these rooms, the level decrease was approximately 20 cm).
In the bathroom, in a niche behind the compartment doors, they hid access hatches for access to plumbing and heating communications, a boiler, and a small utility closet. The doors to the office were made sliding – thus, it is easily integrated into the communication space, in addition, already from the hallway outside its windows you can see a beautiful view. The cold loggia in the bedroom was repaired, but this room was not insulated. On the terrace, the floor was waterproofed and lined with porcelain stoneware, lamps were attached to the walls. The living room, bedroom, and study were equipped with a multi-split air conditioning system. The outdoor unit was placed on the roof in an inconspicuous place.
Design
The loft mood appears from the very first step into the apartment: the entrance hall is finished with materials that are “significant” for this style – concrete-like porcelain stoneware and red “brick”. Thus, it was possible to bring a “historical context” into the modern space. In contrast to the design of the hallway, the living room and dining room are literally bathed in light streams pouring through the huge windows. Therefore, the light gray shade of the walls is quite appropriate here, as well as the dark brown color of upholstered furniture, dining table, and chairs. Panels and posters correspond to this scale.
Brick-like tiles (the walls of the living room, dining room, and kitchen are partially lined with them) perform both a decorative and zoning role. The decoration of the partition between the windows accentuates the border between the seating area and the dining room, and the lining of the part of the partition next to the dining room serves as a visual transition to the kitchen, where the “brick” masonry effectively contrasts with snow-white glossy modules. Draperies on the windows are made of dark brown blended fiber: covering panoramic views with them, you can achieve a feeling of intimacy in space.
The difference in the level of the ceiling also serves as a means of zoning. Minimalistic furniture compositions correspond to the general style. Thus, the kitchen facades stepwise frame a niche lined with brick-like tiles, and the “deepening” tinted with a contrast of color gives expressiveness to the composition. The same techniques of composition and color contrast are used for the closet in the office.
The owners of the apartment love warm colors and prefer the beige color of the walls, taking into account the peculiarities of the climate. In our strip, it is customary to give the walls at least a slight yellowish tint to “add sun”. However, the panoramic windows of the apartment face west, and so much bright sunset light enters it that the beige risked turning into an inappropriate pink color. Therefore, all the walls were painted in light gray. The living room is equipped with a home theater with a minimum set of equipment: a Monitor Audio wall-mounted speaker system with a combination of a front pair of speakers and a center channel, the rear speakers were a pair of Elipson spherical pendant speakers, they look like art objects. Addition – a compact floor-standing subwoofer Velodune, receiver – Harman Kardon.
The main decorative and constructive advantage of the apartment is living pictures outside the windows, as it should be in a penthouse. The lack of furniture next to the outer openings, and laconic curtains leave them almost completely open for contemplation at any time of the day. At the same time, convectors built into the floor in front of panoramic windows in the studio are made almost invisible: they are covered by horizontal screens resembling a trim element in the form of a wide plain plank, even slit-like holes for air convection.
The effect of another window is created by the mirror doors of the closet in the hallway, which is deployed with a facade towards the windows. The bathroom also has a panorama of the city, but a virtual one: on the compartment doors that cover the hatches for access to plumbing and heating communications, a storage boiler and a storage cabinet, a photo of a night metropolis taken from a high point was applied using a photo printing technique.
What lamps to choose for the penthouse?
In maintaining the impression of a light and airy interior atmosphere, lamps play an important role, which becomes especially evident in the dark. In addition to discreet built-in and small surface-mounted ceiling luminaires that create uniform illumination, suspended ceiling lamps were used for more local and accent lighting of individual areas.
So, for the dining room, we chose two light gray cylindrical shades of large diameter – they draw attention to the dining group, but look weightless. Under the ceiling of the living room, like an air halo, a chandelier in the form of a luminous ring soars – a good metaphor for the transparent airiness of this zone.
In the kitchen, where snow-white facades coexist with “brick” masonry, a bit of harder accents have been added. The walls of the entrance area are illuminated by sconces, emphasizing the relief of the “brick” masonry.
How do zone rooms in an open-plan apartment?
In open-plan interiors, there should not be a feeling of boring monotony and functional chaos, when all zones merge: partial autonomy, the ability to gradually open different interior details create a sense of security and intrigue. In this studio, the location of the kitchen and a small breakfast table adjacent to the work area allows for some privacy, especially during short home meals. At the same time, the cooking place is located so that household chores do not appear before the guests at a glance: from the side of the studio, from behind the dining table, only a part of the working modules is visible, and household appliances and a sink are out of sight and do not require observance of the ideal order, so as not to violate the minimalist harmony.
The most important thing about our X that it is for
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