smartvoll architects | Small Apartment- big Space
Functional cubes create a spacious Wilhelminian Style Apartment
The smaller the room, the more intelligent you have to deal with it: themed that way was the modification of a typical Viennese Wilhelminian Style Apartment by smartvoll architects (Philipp Buxbaum und Christian Kircher). The arrangement of different cubes throughout the flat led to a duplication of space. Furthermore, the materials used, represent the residents’ cultural diversity.
The initial situation is well known in Vienna: a Wilhelminian Style apartment lacked light and air. The owners, a Hungarian-Vietnamese Couple- were complaining about restriction of room and individuality.
Smartvoll architects developed a solution that could set standards. They opened what was divided into small sections to a single, spacious room in which they placed 3 cubes: for cooking, sleeping and a bathroom. The clou: the installed equipment do not meet the ceiling height, but rather appear like sculptural furniture. Thus the ceiling and the floor seem like unbroken levels that keep the different areas together like a clasp. Also the arrangement of continuous seam, account for visual coherence of the areas. “Due to that, one can enjoy a feeling of generosity, even inside the cubes”, said the architects.
As for the material, white, burnished marble was used for the cubes. Its reflections and the mirror lead to the enlargement of the vestibule, which depict a charming contrast to the classic, dark herringbone-parquet. Vietnamese silk lightens up the scenic – illuminated areas. They serve a passionate collector- the owner’s presentation of work of primitive arts. The continuous line of cultural diversity is drawn up to the curtains on which one can find patterns of Vietnamese rice terraces.
The sophisticated room concept, the emphasis on individuality and entanglement between architecture and design make this project in Vienna’s 7th district a prime example of the work of smartvoll architecture.
Texts and pictures for download at: http://smartvoll.wordpress.com.
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