Small Loft Apartment Utilizes ‘Box in a Box’ Approach

The past few years have forced many of us to change our habits. Thanks to the world pandemic of COVVI-19, we learned what it was to be completely silent at home, to learn new skills like cooking a meal from zero, bird observation and to take care of a puppy, while sailing on a new work paradigm and house school.

The pandemic has taught us that having flexible spaces at home and in our neighborhoods can be of great help when we have to work, sleep, cook and take care of children – all under the same roof. But for many of us, working at home can be far from ideal, especially if the space has not been installed appropriately. It is good to temporarily use the kitchen table or the sofa as a stop measurement, but it ages quickly when the workspace is neither ergonomic nor distinct from other spaces which are also supposed to be places of relaxation and leisure. Such functional separations may be necessary to maintain its mental health and your level of professionalism when working at home.

These considerations were at the head of the Polish architect Mateusz Jóźwiak of Photon Studio when he thought back to an attic space in the middle of the century in Poznań, Poland, where he and his partner already resided. Jóźwiak and his partner – a digital project designer – were forced to work at home when the pandemic emerged for the first time. However, both struggled to maintain a balance between professional and private life due to the lack of separation between spaces for life and work.

To solve the problem, Jóźwiak changed the apartment by 624 square feet (58 square meters) to make these distinctions lighter by taking what we could call a “box in a box” design approach. The first stage of Jóźwiak was to remove the existing walls to create a blank slate from which to work.

Indeed, the renovation project is called box in a box apartment and presents what seems to be a warmly textured birch box which contains and really hides the bedroom and the office at home outside the living room. This nesting of dedicated spaces is a versatile technique that we have seen many times, in particular as a space saving measurement in shoe box apartments or historical residences that may not have been updated in a certain time.

From the point of view of the living room, the space is purified and open, thanks to the full wall of the staggered shelves and integrated storage that the birch plywood walls offer. The ankle wall is not adjustable in the design, but nevertheless one can imagine that it is flexible enough for the elements of different sizes to be able to adapt here.

Coupled with a vast cutting sofa, this arrangement means that the entertainment center and the home library mix more transparent, forming a space where you can feel more relaxed.

The soft and diaphanous curtains soften the incoming sunlight and offer a texture counterpoint to the cold and gray concrete walls and the pale birch fold.

Although the volume dressed in birch looks like a monolithic entity, it also hides additional storage cupboards in its massive volume, helping to declock the entrance area. As jóźwiak says, the sheet is good:

“My goal was to keep a spacious and utilitarian space in which the geometry and the naturalness of the material play the main roles. [..] I wanted a material with a very natural wooden character to balance concrete. »»

The dining room is also open, thanks to its minimalist treatment. There is a round table here with a few chairs, which adapts better in a compact space and helps to make the flow of traffic around it much smoother.

The kitchen is simple and also seems integrated transparently, thanks to the combination of its shiny white cabinets and open shelves to make the corner more striking visually.

The room is located in the main hallway of the apartment, in the birch mass.

There is a nice contrast between the heat of birch wood and the gray industrial quality of the doors of the existing ceiling and cupboard.

The home office is right next to the room and integrates the same materiality and color themes.

It looks like a space where you can be protected from distractions for a more productive working day.

The bathroom is at the end of this sequence in the corridor and has a clean and rationalized sensation, with white tiles and accessories.

The shower is large and open, due to its large glass wall.

There are many advantages with regard to open spaces, such as having more flexibility. On the other hand, they must be well designed to minimize visual size and optimize the functionality. In this case, the “box in a box” design approach helps on all these fronts, finally creating a house where you can finish a long day of work and relax completely under the same roof. To see more, visit Instagram.