45 square meter Ukraine apartment fuses vintage and contemporary look

One of my home-related dreams is to have a space that is completely designed and customized according to my aesthetic of the moment (which of course, changes every few years or so). And of course, I will probably have just a small space because of budget considerations and also I prefer to have something smaller so it will be easier to clean. For now, I will have to live vicariously through all these spaces I’m writing about and this one is a pretty good dream to have.

Designer: Between the Walls

Between the Walls is a modern design interior studio and one of their newest projects is for their co-founder Victoria Karieva. They designed a vintage but contemporary space for her 45 square meter apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine, incorporating her love for cats and contemporary art as well as several heirloom pieces from her family. The centerpiece of the place is the kitchen combined with the guest room which has a 150-year-old restored cabinet and a 200-year-old icon from her husband’s family.

Since the theme is vintage mixed with contemporary, you also see a mixture of flea market and modern pieces. There are 70s vintage leather chairs and flea market chairs next to a marble round table. There are other smaller touches which play into her love for art, like a handmade wool lamp by a local artist named Nicholas Moon and two paintings by Anton Sayenko. There’s also a “secret” in this space: a sauna that is hidden in a closet. The rest of the apartment uses natural materials like stone, tiles, plywood, with the bathroom using Italian Vague titles. There’s also a lot of storage space even if it’s a small area.

The way the apartment is decorated shows that even if it’s a small area, you can still have a lot of space incorporated with the various small vintage and contemporary furniture. It seems like a perfect space for a couple, with a couple of cats thrown in. As a single woman without a cat, this is something to aspire for, at least in my dreams.

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Tiny apartment turns into “bigger” and colorful space

Ask any architect or designer about tiny living spaces and they will tell you that adding mirrors to the space will make it seem larger than it actually is, square feet speaking. But there are also those that can use a few other design “tricks” to not just make it more spacious but also add some playful and special elements into something that may seem tiny and drab at first. These architects who co-founded Miogui Architects were able to do something extraordinary for one of their client’s small apartment.

Designer: Léo Berastegui and Sabine Fremiot

They wanted to start from scratch for this project since the 141-square foot apartment was pretty shabby and cramped. The secret to making this not just livable but a showcase for design ingenuity is playing around with colors, geometric shapes, materials, and even the overall functionality of some parts of the house. They focused on transforming some of the most commonly used spaces in the house: the kitchen and living area. The bathroom also gets a unique transformation in this redesigned apartment.

First off, they turned the bathroom into a smaller space and re-assigned some of it to the kitchen and the living room which is where people spend more time anyways. To make the now tiny bathroom a bit more spacious, they created a tall and narrow door and also placed geometric mirrors (a round mirror and a triangular one under it) inside. They used square glass bricks to be the divider from the kitchen and then matching square shower tiles with blue accents. They placed a marble-tiled diamond-shaped handle on the bathroom door to make it part of the space’s design and not just be a doorknob.

To separate the kitchen from the living area, they placed a bright yellow curtain at a curved angle to not just separate the spaces but reflect and enhance the light in the room. It can be pulled back if you want to join the two rooms and then slid close for a sense of privacy and coziness when entertaining guests. Plus the sunshine yellow really gives the apartment a bright glow. The living room is also made a bit more spacious with a round mirror above the convertible sofa.

The kitchen is sectioned off with a red-painted pillar, contrasting nicely with the yellow curtain. The color scheme of the place, including the cobalt-blue linoleum flooring and the square blue tiles, is inspired by the artwork of Piet Mondrian. What was once a small, uninspired space is now a showcase for creativity and ingenuity.

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This sustainable apartment uses 90% wood in its construction

SAWA, designed by Mei Architects and Planners, won the Experimental Future Projects category in the World Architecture Festival 2021. The apartment building drips with green roofs and balcony plantings. It is also Rotterdam’s first 50-meter-high residential building. The design beat out seven other nominated projects for the top prize in the category.

The residential building focuses on circular timber construction, biodiversity, and healthy communities with ample planting space. The designers wanted to reduce CO2 emissions and help achieve national and international climate goals.

The building is called the healthiest building in the Netherlands. It is designed to prove that humans can live and build in a sustainable way. The plan for the building intentionally reduced the approved volume of the zoning plan model with a stepped exterior.

SAWA will house about 100 apartments, with a large communal deck on the first floor plus numerous terraces. The column structure within the building allows apartments to be rearranged in the future, which helps future-proof the building for multiple uses.

The apartment building is unique in preserving as much wood surfaces in the apartments as possible. Only hidden walls will be finished with plaster. In fact, SAWA is built 90% out of wood, which sets an example for future apartment building projects looking to use non-traditional materials and construction methods.

In addition, the cross-laminated timber used for SAWA stores CO2 and reduces emissions while creating a warm and comforting living space. In fact, the construction time is also shorter compared to concrete construction. SAWA was built with Open Building Principles in mind. The principles focus on pillar supports, floor beams, and columns to create flexible and open interior spaces.

This is the sixth award for the SAWA building. The building already won first prize at the Green Good Design Awards and was also awarded the ARC20 Innovation Award. SAWA was recognized as highly recommended at the MIPIM/AR Future Project Awards. The design was awarded a Special Mention at the Architizer A+ Awards and was selected for the Iconic Awards for Innovative Architecture.

Designer: Mei Architects

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IKEA Japan’s new Tiny Homes campaign rents out a furnished 10sqm micro-apartment for only $1 per month!

IKEA Japan launched a Tiny Homes campaign that finds a 10sqm apartment in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district to make full use of its floor plan through space-saving furniture and a vertical layout.

All over the world, micro-living accommodations have made staying in even the busiest of cities possible. Tokyo, the most populous city in the world, has made strides in micro-living accommodations, from capsule hotels to shared living spaces.

Considering Tokyo’s populace of 14 million, it’s safe to say the city’s residents are familiar with tiny living solutions. As part of its Tiny Homes campaign, IKEA Japan has debuted a completely furnished 10sqm tiny apartment in the city’s Shinjuku district.

Known for its multifunctional furniture and convenient assembly, the IKEA brand’s living solutions come in all forms. Through its new Tiny Homes campaign, IKEA utilizes its collection of storage compartments and modular furniture to make the most out of tiny apartment spaces.

In the Shinjuku district, IKEA’s 10sqm apartment is organized vertically to make use of the floor plan’s lofty heights and furnished with an array of various space-saving furniture. Dividing the apartment into two levels, residents are greeted by the entryway, kitchenette, bathroom, and laundry machine.

Bringing residents to the apartment’s sleeping mezzanine area, a step ladder connects the first level to the second. Throughout the home, storage pieces like the IVAR storage system and SKÅDIS shelf unit outfit the apartment’s desk to make full use out of the home’s working area. Customizable by design, the IVAR storage system makes it easy for residents to transform the desk to fit their taste, by adding and removing storage modules as needed. Other pieces, like a sleeper sofa and furniture on wheels, morph the tiny apartment into a space for entertaining, sleeping, or working.

Designer: IKEA Japan

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This prefabricated steel residence is built from a single Quonset hut to find community through modularity

The Caterpillar is a 192-foot-long, 46-foot-wide modular residence designed and built from a Quonset hut that features a compact and inhabitable cube in the center of each unit for services such as a bathroom, shower, and kitchen.

In the United States, Quonset huts were introduced in the years following World War I. Based on the earlier Nissen hut, another type of prefabricated steel structure designed by the United Kingdom for military use, Quonset huts were designated for primary use by the U.S. Navy. Chosen for its lightweight profile, the Quonset Hut is an all-purpose building that can be shipped anywhere and assembled without skilled labor.

Today, in Detroit’s Core City neighborhood, real estate development company Prince Concepts, teamed with architect Ishtiaq Rafiuddin and landscape architect Julie Bargmann to turn the Quonset hut into a 9,000sf sculpture with six residences and two live-and-work spaces.

Following True North, the neighborhood’s first live-and-work communal space, the team of architects and developers hoped to merge that same sense of community into a single Quonset hut. Dividing the lengthy residential complex into eight units, each live-and-work space features 23-foot tall ceilings that are lined with clerestory windows and a ‘Jetsons’ style genesis chamber where residents can “transform from ‘just barely awake’ to ‘ready for action,’” as the architects describe.

Constructed from unstained, polished wood, the genesis chamber is positioned neatly in the center of each unit and brings a railroad-style flow to each unit. Separating the bedroom from the kitchen and dining area, the genesis chamber contains all the services available to each unit, including the bathroom, shower, and kitchen. From the kitchen, residents pass through the bathroom to get to the main bedroom and vice versa.

Finding inspiration everywhere from music notes on a piece of sheet music to a UFO crash landing in the forest, the team of architects behind Caterpillar set out to create a type of communal sanctuary in Core City’s urban woodland, where over 150 trees call home.

Caterpillar homes in on porch culture to outfit its exterior with the same sense of openness that floods the inside of each residential unit. From windows to doors, Caterpillar features 36 different openings that bring in pools of natural light indoors during the day and emanate a golden glow from the outside come dark.

Designers: Undecorated, Studio Detroit, Prince Concepts, D.I.R.T. Studio, and SteelMaster

The inhabitable center cube outfits the home with services such as a bathroom, shower, and kitchen. 

The curved walls evoke a similar open layout seen in spiritual dome buildings. 

Designed in railroad style, the genesis chamber divides the home into two different living areas. 

The bathroom takes on a minimalist personality to blend with the unit’s open layout.

Skylights and clerestory windows bring in pools of natural light throughout each unit. 

Each unit is split into its own half-circle splice with 36 different openings lining the facades of Caterpillar. 

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This transforming robotic furniture descending from the ceiling to take your home from bedroom to living room!





‘The Smile,’ a new apartment complex in East Harlem designed by BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) features smart furniture systems comprised of stow-away storage units, bed frames, workspaces, and wardrobes that rise into and fall from the ceiling on command.

Technology is changing the way we live in cities. Electric scooters and bullet trains are replacing city buses, while public spaces are relying on AI and smart technology for contactless services. In New York City’s East Harlem neighborhood, a new apartment complex called, ‘The Smile’ from BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) integrates a smart, modular furniture system from Bumblebee Spaces into each apartment to take full advantage of each living unit’s full cubic space.

Built around a grid that’s mounted to each unit’s ceiling, the modular furniture systems are comprised of storage cabinets and bed frames that rise and descend according to the changing needs of each resident. When a component of the system isn’t in use, it rises and disappears into the ceiling to enlargen the unit’s available living space. Then, when one is needed, the furniture system recognizes voice commands, remote controls, and programmed settings to initiate a component’s descent from the ceiling to the unit’s floor.

For example, after waking up in the morning, residents can command the bed to merge with the ceiling to conceal it from view. Then, in the same way, residents can instruct for modules like customized workspaces and drawers to lower down from the ceiling for access during the day. Crafted from wood, the furniture system brings a touch of comfort to each unit, giving the apartment’s industrial backdrop some organic warmth. Like a robotic housekeeper, Bumblebee’s furniture system also remembers where residents left certain pieces of furniture or smaller belongings so looking for your keys won’t keep you from getting a move on.

BIG’s ‘The Smile,’ located in New York City’s East Harlem currently features 163 market-rate and 70 affordable apartments, the latter group reserved for mid and low-income residents. While the furniture system, designed by former Tesla and Apple engineers, is currently only available in five units, the future of smart living is surely on its way to every city.

Designer: Bumblebee Spaces x BIG

Each module can be outfitted for specific purposes, from workspaces to wardrobes. 

Integrated organizational systems make each module easy to navigate. 

Residents can control their smart furniture system from their smartphones.

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