Architects: Destilat Architecture + Design
Project: Viennese apartment refurbished
Designer: Harald Hatschenberger
Location: Vienna, Austria
Photography: Monika Nguyen
The Apartment E&E is more than just a conventional redevelopment of an old classic Viennese apartment; it is a statement about sustainable interior design. The concept’s central theme was to unite the consumption-critical lifestyle of the owner with high aesthetic standards to create a coherent overall concept.
This included of course the renovation of the desolate technical infrastructure like the heating system, sanitary and electrical installations as well as a new contemporary floor plan with an open fitted kitchen, a bigger bathroom and a new children’s room in the former kitchen area. The goal was to base the interior design concept mostly on second hand furniture and sustainability. Trendy classics and high-priced pieces from vintage furniture boutiques were deliberately avoided.
Almost the entire freestanding furniture was purchased via common Internet platforms, taking two vital parameters into account that were, surprisingly, not at odds with each other: minimal acquisition costs and a certain visual standard. The furniture concept was developed in an intensive search and selection process and in close cooperation with the client.
Even the tiles that were used for the foyer, bathroom, and toilet are fine stoneware tiles that were carefully and laboriously removed from concreted surfaces. As a matter of course, the old doors and windows were restored and the original parquet floors were preserved. The open kitchen with its freestanding island unit that looks like a workbench were custom made by destilat and equipped with ivory-coloured Eternit fronts.
The owner sees this project not as a rigid, dogmatic manifest of anti-consumerism, but a fascinating attempt to find the formal equivalent of his philosophy of life.
