Staszelówka: A Calm Tatra Retreat
Staszelówka anchors a 110-metre apartment in the Tatra mountains of Poland, where Studio Formy works inside a traditional timber shell with contemporary precision. The project treats the log-built structure as a constant, layering porcelain stoneware across walls, doors, and monolithic furnishings to frame daily life against the alpine setting. Every room feels tailored yet direct, with materials doing most of the talking and ornament kept to a quiet minimum.
Snowlight filters across the timber ceiling and settles on cool porcelain, catching grain and veining in the same glance. A mountain home turns inward, and the material palette does the work.
This apartment sits within a traditional log structure in the Tatra mountains, built from thick conifer trunks and reinterpreted as a precise 110-metre home. Studio Formy takes the regional shell as a given and concentrates on what happens inside, pairing natural wood with refined porcelain stoneware for every major surface. The composition is spare but deliberate, pursuing an interior palette where warmth and mineral clarity share equal weight.
Balancing Timber And Stone
The ceiling, door frames, and window reveals keep their natural wood, so the grain reads clearly against the smooth planes of porcelain cladding nearby. Thick conifer trunks speak to the region’s building tradition, while the stoneware walls and doors give the rooms a crisp, continuous skin that resists visual clutter. Light travels across the irregular veining of the tiles, setting up soft shifts of shadow that hold their own next to the warmer tones of the logs.
Kitchen As Mineral Core
In the kitchen, the Supreme porcelain stoneware collection becomes both backdrop and working surface, running up the walls and down into the island and worktop. This move turns storage and preparation zones into one mineral volume, so joints fall away and daily use reads as a single block of color and pattern. The tiles’ subtle veining takes on extra presence at this close range, giving the island a monolithic calm in the middle of the room.
Continuity Through Bedroom And Hall
The open-plan corridor carries modern art motifs that converse directly with the Marmora collection vein-touch tiles in the master bedroom. Those tiles extend the palette of the shared areas, but the finer veining and tactile surface turn the room toward a quieter, more intimate register. Wall and floor surfaces share the same material language, so the bed and soft furnishings sit against a stable, gently patterned field. Art, corridor, and bedroom link through color and line rather than overt decoration.
Monolith Bathrooms In Light
Bathrooms push the porcelain strategy furthest, where Marmoker tiles wrap walls, floors, and monolithic washbasin units in a single continuous treatment. Basins and counters read as carved blocks rather than add-on fixtures, reinforcing the sense of a stone volume shaped for water and routine. Backlighting within the shower zone grazes the Supreme collection tiles, sharpening their three-dimensional surface and reinforcing the contrast between lit veining and deeper shadow. Metal fittings and smaller décor elements stay restrained, so the eye stays with the play of light across the stoneware planes.
Back in the main rooms, the traditional timber shell and the contemporary porcelain interior settle into a clear, steady rhythm. Wood holds warmth at the perimeter, while stoneware carries daily wear in the most used areas without visual noise. The result is a mountain apartment that reads as both rooted and current, letting material decisions quietly frame comfort, well-being, and a durable sense of safety for its occupants.
Photography courtesy of Studio Formy
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