Olly Apartment is a laconic project located in Podil – a historic neighborhood in Kyiv. It retains the architecture of the 17-19 centuries. Here co-exist ensembles of different styles – Ukrainian Baroque, Russian classicism, eclecticism, and modernism.
The main goal of this project is to create an excellent apartment for rent. The client has good design taste, but blurred wishes regarding the future concept of the apartment. That`s why we decided to make research about the location and context of this apartment. This helped us create our strong vision about how this small but cozy space can be rethought.
For this concept, we have chosen an old-fashion style mood combined with ascetic minimalism. This approach helped us create a quite minimalistic and multi-faceted home where anybody can leave their thoughts and create their own story. It is full of modern materials and techniques combined with vintage stuff and recycled elements.
The original plan has a small bedroom. Actually, the bedroom was so small that the bed barely fit. We destroyed that space and build a new one. Larger. The bedroom consists of three different areas: rest, working, and storage with an extra small but pretty wardrobe room. The rest area is designed in a symmetrical technique that creates the feeling of a hotel room. You cannot see the other part of the room when you are lying on the bed. To make this space more minimalistic, we have created a large wardrobe with a secret door leading to the small dressing room. This technique helps us blur the lines between the main area and the small room. You can see the difference by comparing the original and new plans.
This main space is filled with empty walls and gorgeous furnishings that set the right mood for rest, dining, kitchen, and hallway areas. In fact, all three of these areas combined into one large space, but the kitchen and hallway are visually separated by walls. Sources of light are all set in the ceiling. We deliberately hid them. That makes the composition cleaner and visually expands the space. We love the way this small space talks to people — not too loudly. This room gives a space for your thoughts.
A new bathroom has more space than the original. The design of this space is pretty simple — the main idea is to give this small room an opportunity to get natural light. Therefore, we made a window built into the wall between the bathroom and kitchen. Bright stone texture creates a feeling of a cozy cave.