B01 – Brings Brutalist Warmth to a Polish Collector’s Home
B01 unfolds across a full-floor apartment in Bydgoszcz, Poland, shaped by CXA into a raw yet refined penthouse that reads like a private gallery. Concrete, a black central volume, and curated artworks structure daily life, while concealed systems keep the rooms visually calm. Each area—from the living room library to the child’s mezzanine—extends the same disciplined aesthetic into a rich, highly personal home.
Light slips along polished concrete and catches on the edge of a black volume at the center of the apartment. From this dense core, rooms unfold toward glass and sky, each surface tuned to art, texture, and quiet. Gallery mood and domestic comfort share the same floor.
B01 is a 150 m² apartment in Bydgoszcz, Poland, reworked by CXA into a single penthouse drawn from two former units. The project treats the interior as a total work, from structural interventions to the selection of furniture, artworks, and even tableware. Material honesty, calibrated lighting, and calm compositions guide every decision, turning daily life into an ongoing encounter with art and concrete.
Entering from the elevator, visitors first cross a dark threshold where a black “box” absorbs city noise and visual clutter. Past this compressed hallway, the home opens into a bright living area lined with books and framed by a full-height glazed façade. Raw concrete, sculpture-like furniture, and extensive art collections hold the narrative together.
Black Core As Gallery
The heart of the apartment is a velvety black volume that acts as both technical hub and sensory filter. Within its walls, the traces of merging two units and the labyrinth of building systems are absorbed into a controlled, shadowy envelope. Spot lighting, reminiscent of a museum, grazes canvases by Misha Waks and Bart Sucharski, drawing out textures while marking a quiet route toward the living areas. This compressed entrance sequence turns the hallway into an intimate gallery, where art meets the thrum of hidden installations.
Concrete Daylife Rooms
In the day zone, a slab of architectural concrete underfoot sets a cool, durable base for more refined surfaces. The kitchen reads as a rigorous volume: two original windows give way to a monolithic run of cabinetry, pierced only by a central island of Silestone with warm lacquered oak within. Symmetry governs cuts, joints, and the island geometry, while an AXOR Citterio Semi-Pro faucet introduces a precise, almost industrial note. The living room steps back from clutter, anchored by a monumental library and a leather Baxter sofa that together support long hours with music and books.
Hidden HVAC and invisible air-conditioning keep technology out of sight so the room can center on literature, sound, and art. An axial plan, reinforced by the glazed façade, allows daylight to run the full length of the apartment, sliding across steel, stone, textiles, and wood. Visual tension between these materials gives the shared rooms a measured drama.
Work And Dining Grove
The dining area doubles as a conference room, ready for remote work and long meetings without losing its domestic ease. A custom table with a concrete top anchors the setting, surrounded by Vipp chairs that can pivot from family dinner to focused tasks. Above, a commissioned painting by Nikodem Szpunar responds to the apartment’s structural rhythm and its urban surroundings in color and form. Carefully chosen greenery softens the hard surfaces, so concrete floors and a steel frame gain a gentler expression around the table.
Quiet Private Realms
The bedroom sequence begins with a calm zone devoted to yoga and meditation, easing the transition from public to private life. At its center, a bed with an irregular geometric headboard frames a painting by Janusz Osicki and hides discreet storage and bedside cabinets within its volume. Across from the bed, a substantial bookcase signals the owners’ love of reading, punctuated by a work from Lia Kimura, while a tailored dressing room in Forner boards continues the restrained palette. Concrete, natural wood, art, and a terrace view together set a quiet scenography for rest.
The bathing rooms stay within the same material field: polished concrete and large-format sintered slabs echo the kitchen and day zone. In the owners’ bathroom, a generous walk-in shower with two opposing stations is fitted with AXOR One fixtures, whose clear lines echo the interior’s geometry. Accessories from the same collection, along with minimalist ceramics, give the room a sculptural clarity. The guest bathroom off the hallway softens exposed concrete with a white bathtub and controlled lighting, while paired radiators flank the doorway to reinforce the project’s disciplined axial order.
A Room For Exploration
The child’s room keeps the architectural rigor yet leaves room for changing fascinations. Its central element is a play “base,” a mezzanine linked to a climbing wall that suggests an explorer’s outpost. First imagined for a budding astronaut and later filled with dinosaurs, the room absorbs shifting interests without losing its clear lines. Even here, technology withdraws: air conditioning disappears into custom joinery, and a magnetic wall supports drawing, notes, and experiments.
Across the apartment, CXA treats the home as a complete composition, from structural reconnection of the two units to the last plant pot. Concrete, steel, sintered slabs, and precise fixtures stay honest in texture while giving art and books a steady stage. As light moves from the dark heart to the glazed edge of the floor, B01 reads as both gallery and dwelling, tuned to the rhythm of everyday use.
Photography by Tom Kurek
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