A Green Core Unlocks Critical Space in a Family’s 570-Square-Foot Prague Apartment

Even on a wet day, Nina and Marek don’t be concerned about feeling cooped up with their two-year-old daughter of their renovated Prague condominium. Regardless of being lower than 600 sq. ft, the flat feels a lot bigger due to its good space-saving design. “Nothing feels cramped, our baby has room to maneuver and play, and options just like the mini-pool tub make it really feel like an actual residence quite than only a compact one,” says Marek.

Nina, a musician, had been residing within the condominium for a number of years earlier than the couple determined to construct a life collectively there. Later, anticipating a toddler, they known as on native studio Architéka to replace the cramped and divided flat. “They had been seeking to begin a brand new chapter of their lives,” says studio founder and principal Tereza Komárková. Wanting a extra open really feel, they sacrificed one of many flat’s three bedrooms, eradicating a wall and turning the world into an open-plan kitchen and lounge. To maintain some separation, Komárková positioned a inexperienced field on the heart of the flat, which integrates the kitchen, a wardrobe, and floor-to-ceiling storage on all sides. “It saves area and maximizes it,” she says.

However the field additionally facilitates circulation. “You’ll be able to stroll, or run, in a full circle round it,” says Marek. “It offers the entire condominium a way of openness and circulation, quite than feeling like a sequence of closed-off rooms. Our daughter has turned it right into a racetrack. On wet days once we can’t get outdoors, it retains her fortunately busy.” Pocket doorways, one other space-saving transfer, can tweak the structure for privateness: one can shut off the lounge and kitchen from the visitor room—what’s going to at some point be the couple’s daughter’s room—and the opposite closes off the visitor room from the hallway resulting in the lavatory, rest room, and first bed room.