Apartment B by GRAU architects
Apartment B sits in Bratislava, Slovakia, where GRAU architects refines a compact two-bedroom apartment into a clearer daily setting. The studio reshapes the plan, moves the toilet into the bathroom, and uses a gentle palette to map work, rest, and gathering. Color and volume carry the brief. Built-ins form a quiet backbone while freestanding pieces create breathing room and light finds the corridor through a glass-block wall.
Light slides across pale veneer and white planes before pooling at the corridor edge. A glass-block partition softens that threshold, sending a muted glow back toward the entry.
This is a two-bedroom apartment in Bratislava by GRAU architects, shaped through a precise interior rework. One move drives the project: the toilet shifts into the bathroom, freeing the living room with kitchen to stretch into a more generous daily zone. Color codes and distinct volumes steer the experience without noise, and each element knows its job.
Rework the Plan
The plan edits start small and land big. By consolidating the toilet within the bathroom, the main room gains width for a longer kitchen run and a clearer seating arrangement that reduces pinch points and visual clutter. Storage rises to the ceiling where it matters, paired with the bathroom wall to read as a single spatial box. That compact block anchors the apartment and simplifies circulation to the bedrooms.
Light the Corridor
A glass-block partition brightens the hallway without giving up privacy. The wall borrows daylight from the bathroom and returns it as a soft, dappled wash, trimming the need for constant artificial light and signaling direction from entry to living. Diffused light calms the threshold between rooms, and the material’s texture adds a quiet shimmer underfoot. It’s a modest intervention — just enough to change daily rhythms.
Color Sets Mood
Program maps to color with crisp intent. Yellow marks work: it wraps the kitchen line and the desk, making task zones legible and giving energy where focus lives. Light blue seats the conversations at the dining table and the bench by the entry, a cooler tone that slows the pace and frames gathering. White signals rest, spanning bed frames and a TV wall with a shelf system that reads calm from morning to night.
Objects as Masses
Freestanding elements arrive as material solitaires, placed like distinct masses within the room. Some stop short of the ceiling or lift slightly off the floor, keeping air moving and sightlines long while clarifying what is storage, what is seating, and what is structure. Pale veneered cabinets take all storage duties with a consistent tone that avoids visual noise. The result is order through placement and proportion rather than ornament.
Everyday Calm
Daily life lands easily on this layout. Clear zones, soft light, and a few decisive materials turn a compact footprint into a steady routine that’s simple to read and use. The corridor glows, the main room breathes, and colors cue attention without raising the volume. Nothing shouts; it just works.
Photography by Jakub Michal Teringa
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