Project: Monarch Apartment
Interior design: Babayants Architects
Style: Natalia Onufreichuk
Location: Moscow, Russia
Size: 115 sq. m
Completion year: 2023
Photo: Sergey Krasyuk
Babayants Architects designed the interior of a 115 sq. m apartment located on the top floor in the Monarch Residential Complex in Moscow.
Project’s challenges
Architects had to deal with and incorporate a massive load-bearing pylon not visually supported by anything else in the space. To make a harmonious composition, architects made a pylon a part of the kitchen by installing a dining table in it. This became a starting point of an embracing-walls-with-wood motif as an integral part of the concept.
The second challenge of this project was standard-height windows. Normally architects work with the interiors with panoramic glassing. It was essential to calculate the presence of natural light in each space and displace the accent from the windows’ frames.
Also, it was necessary to carefully work with a ceiling height that was low enough. Usually, it might cause difficulties in designing the ventilation and conditioning systems without lowering already a modest height. However, Babayants Architects could compositionally accentuate the verticals and set beautiful proportions to the space. It doesn’t feel like the spaces are not that tall.
Clients’ lifestyle and requirements
The clients are a mom with an adult daughter living together. They appreciate aesthetics; they’re pedantic, perfectionists, and attentive to the details.
One of the main requirements was a bio fireplace. To make it happen, Artem Babayants designed a floating suspended structure and podium made of natural stone Astana Gray. This is a unique multifunctional solution. It serves as a visual partition zoning the common area, as a TV stand, and complements the bio fireplace itself. This structure has become a focal point of the interior.
The clients wanted to have a bathroom with a free-standing bathtub and a big mirror with good lighting for makeup. It demanded to thoroughly elaborate the lighting scenarios to make a comfortable interior.
The daughter’s bedroom had to have several functions: a relaxing zone, a dressing area with a vanity table, and a reading corner. All cabinet furniture including panels, cabinets, and a vanity table with built-in mirror, was designed by Babayants Architects. A sleeping zone was delicately separated from the dressing room with round wooden partitions. This bedroom has four windows on two sides; therefore there was no need in building a solid wall. This way the sunlight comes to all zones making interior more deep and fascinating.
Concept and main features
The base of the concept is minimalism with character. The interior is full of ideal lines and proportions, nuances reflecting the hard-core work of architects.
Rounded wooden panels are the main leitmotif of the interior. When creating the project concept, architects were inspired, among other things, by the architecture of the building. The external walls of the building have a radius curve and a special angle. This radius was repeated in two zones using veneer structures in the living room and master bedroom. This smoothed corners and soft lines and greatly influenced the atmosphere of the space, making it tactile, soft, and feminine.
A delicate honey color palette is prevailing in the interior. The common shades of wood on the floors, walls, furniture, and elements create an enveloping visual impression.
The architects looked for warm wood tones for each space that set the overall narrative of the interior. For example, the cabinet and veneer in the master bedroom were selected ton-sur-son.
Looking at this composition, one wants to contemplate the shadows and emerging volumes for a long time.
The process of selecting paint for the walls in the rooms took a particularly long time in this project. Babayants Architects always carefully consider shade options for different lighting scenarios. Here they spent a very long time searching that same light gray tone.
Finishing materials, wooden elements, cabinet furniture, wall panels and partitions, structures made of natural stone, finishing in bathrooms – all this is custom production, made in Moscow workshops according to the Babayants Architects drawings.
To bring the architecture of space, beautiful lines, and proportions to the fore, it’s essential to hide everything technical and remove the secondary. Implementation of such solutions requires discipline and constant attention on the drawings and on-site. The wardrobe and bathroom are hidden in a wooden volume in this project. To do this, Babayants Architects veneered the cabinet fronts, a wall, and a door with a single material and calculated millimeters to bring all the elements into one plane. The aesthetics of minimalism and its purity are built from such decisions.
