AFL Port Praski: Vivid Polish Apartment for Artful City Living
AFL Port Praski unfolds as a richly layered apartment on the fringes of Krakow, Poland, shaped by Mistovia for two graphic designers and their dogs. Across 125 m², the interior balances vivid colour, tactile materials and everyday comfort, turning the home into both studio and living quarters. The result is a place where work, art and rest overlap without friction, yet each room still guards its own mood and tempo.
Late daylight glances off veined stone and pale oak as it slips through sheer curtains and across the open ground floor. A vivid orange island, blood-red switches and black geometric cabinetry punctuate the calm, while shelves of books and glass objects catch the softer tones of evening light.
This 125 m² apartment on the outskirts of Krakow is planned as both home and working base for two graphic designers, shaped by Mistovia with a confident hand. The project treats the interior as a layered composition of colour, texture and furniture, tuned to the rhythms of living, working and making art. From entry to upper floor, each room tunes that palette differently, yet the sequence reads as one continuous narrative.
Ground Floor As Gallery
Visitors step through a portal lined in dramatic Black Forest Granite, its black-and-white veining drawing the eye straight into the kitchen and living area. That same stone returns along the coffee nook, where the graphic pattern sits behind bold red light switches, echoing the visual language of the owners’ profession. Around it, natural oak cabinetry with softly rounded edges and a quieter Prada Gold Granite worktop tempers the intensity, so cooking feels grounded instead of theatrical. Above, a simple shelf becomes a ledge for small objects, turning utilitarian storage into a low-key display.
The living area revolves around a sculptural island, light on its feet and almost playful. A vivid orange base anchors the piece, while the black, patterned veneer that wraps its body picks up the apartment’s graphic theme. Overhead, Ingo Maurer’s Blow Me Up lamp stretches with a tongue-in-cheek industrial attitude, lit like a line drawn in the air. On the island, a glass hen bonbonniere from Ząbkowice adds humour and memory, proof that the palette grows from personal collections as much as from samples.
Compact Bathroom, Big Drama
Tucked beneath the staircase, the ground-floor bathroom trades square meters for intensity. A soft, undulating built-in line runs into the walls, easing the tight geometry of the room. Two round interior windows admit borrowed daylight from the living area and utility zone, so the small volume never feels shut away. Surfaces do the rest of the work: red travertine, burr wood, wall mosaics, a cobalt-blue basin and a red Italian tap turn washing up into a full-colour experience.
Here, the absence of an external window pushes the palette into bolder territory. The shower under the stair gains depth from shadow, texture and reflection rather than from a view. Each material has a distinct role—the travertine for weight, the burr for warmth, the mosaic for rhythm—so the room functions as a condensed study in contrast. It’s a pocket of intensity just off the calmer heart of the home.
Living, Dining, And Work
Move deeper and the mood cools. A black dining table by TAMO sits under a glass globe lamp from Marset, its tones echoing sunset light that filters through semi-transparent curtains. The arrangement of sofas face to face gives the living area a conversational energy, ideal for gatherings or long evenings with friends. Books line generous shelving, where walnut, tinted ash and bubinga divide the collection into quiet bands of colour.
Television stays out of sight, tucked inside closed cabinetry so the room reads first as a social and reading zone. The modular joinery encasing the chimney stack proves how storage can guide perception: black, geometric forms in the entry and kitchen side shift into rounded, warm oak volumes in the living room. Across one continuous built-in, the palette changes from graphic to gentle, carrying visitors from arrival to relaxation without a jolt.
Calm Upstairs, Creative Edge
Oak stairs lead to the upper floor, where solid timber gives way to a light steel-frame structure at the top level. This shift in construction frames a more private world above the energetic ground floor. In the bedroom and dressing area, warm oak surfaces—the headboard wall, bedside tables, vanity—set a steady backdrop for sleep and slow mornings. The soft silk forms of the OiSoOi lamp introduce a faint glow, a counterpoint to the sharper, more saturated pieces downstairs.
Artworks by Łucja Wużyk and Chwilczyński punctuate the upper rooms, reminding occupants that this quieter level still belongs to working artists. The upstairs bathroom trades colour for shadow and refinement: smoked oak joinery, a textured glass shower screen forming a classic arch, and a vintage wall light that throws a warm, measured beam. Where the lower bathroom plays with intensity, this one leans on proportion and restraint, tuned to daily unwinding after studio hours.
In this home, no two rooms move at the same pace. Each volume carries its own mix of material and light, from granite-framed entry to oak-framed sleep. As days shift between work, painting, reading and conversation, the interior responds with a palette that bends but does not break, holding these different rhythms under one roof.
Photography by ONI Studio
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