Lubetkin Apartment

Studio naama

Tower Hamlets, 2023

Compact Design of the Year Prize

The refurbishment of an apartment in Berthold Lubetkin’s Grade II listed Sivill House. With only 65 sqm available, the young clients required a number of unique additions to the two bed,12th floor property including a bicycle storage and training area, a study, a versatile second bedroom and a casual eating space. The design sought to celebrate the subtle embedded structural framework, connecting to the identity of the building, stripping back areas to reveal original concrete beams, punching through a bedroom and living room wall and integrating timber clad adaptive furnitures and bespoke metalwork to give warmth, colour and light to the apartment’s spaces and create beautiful and practical structures and forms, full of craft and expression of the human spirit.

The project embraces low cost fabrication and utilises standard building materials throughout; this includes lower grade plywood, substrates as flooring, lightweight polycarbonate sheeting, acrylic and mirrors. An aesthetic based on craft and material has been formed, as well as exposing the merits of the existing structure, giving richness and warmth to its inhabitants. The rigidity of the original layout did not provide opportunity for new programmes and interaction, such as working from home, without spaces becoming convoluted or subdivided into smaller areas. With only minimal demolition and limited intervention, the proposal addressed these problems by creating flexibility and adaptable spaces that lend and borrow both physical space and light to enable spaces to be used in multiple ways as and when needed.

“We had a bit of trepidation; is it really that smart to open your bedroom to your living room and vice versa? Will we just end up leaving it shut? But it's been wonderful. The feeling of space. The plants that break the view. We're better connected, too - we can chat more easily while getting on with our day. And the light! When we want, closing the panels makes for a clean, peaceful bedroom. But so far, we've mainly left them open! We love it - a testament to what can be achieved in small spaces with great design.”

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