A flat’s redesign, Bucharest
An anonymous apartment building of the 30s, with one small flat per floor. No special architecture – on the contrary, awkward positions of the openings, non-functional corners; yet, at the same time, qualities that even the worst architecture at that time had and which hardly come up today: agreeable height, a well proportioned windows, an indescribable charm of bizarre connections between spaces, or of ordinary door joints with panelling and boarding.
TOPIC:
An 80 sq.m. flat to modernize and adapt for a family with two parents and two children. The floor stands directly on all walls (inclusing the non-bearing ones), denying any kind of demolition.
2 – 3 – 4 ROOMS
Initially, 1-2 people used to live there. The flat had a large bedroom with two windows, a decent living, a wide kitchen, a second restroom, a monte-charge and a closet.
As a family of 4 moved in the 70s, the kitchen turned into a bedroom for the children and the closet into a kitchen.
For the new situation in 2011, and the new needs, the project is only about increasing density:
The living was divided by a plasterboard wall in two bedrooms for the children.
The large bedroom turned into a living.
The small bedroom turned into a matrimonial one.
The bathroom turned into a small kitchen.
The kitchen turned into a bathroom, taking advantage of the installation of the second restroom.
ALMOST NOTHING
New plumbing, fixed parquet flooring, painting, 90% of furniture from IKEA, a sofa and a chest of drawers left from the 30s.
IKEA furniture has been restored or new, used as such or occasionally “perverted”. Thus, “Billy” bookshelves hide a secret door between the two children’s rooms: a direct connection when they do not fight and also the preservation of the circuit that connected all the rooms in the house.
Architecture: Zeppelin
Authors: Ștefan Ghenciulescu, Constantin Goagea, Cătălin Iclozan
Construction: Habitual
Project and execution: 2011
Photos: Ştefan Tuchilă
