The Patchwork Apartment | A+Noima Office

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The Patchwork Apartment | A+Noima Office

Information

  • Project Name: The Patchwork Apartment
  • Practice: A+Noima Office
  • Products: Caparol
  • Completion year: 2020
  • Gross Built up Area: 64 sqm
  • Project Location: Iasi
  • Country: Romania
  • Lead Architects/Designer: Alexandra Berdan
  • Design Team: Alexandra Berdan, Ștefania Borș
  • Contractors: ZAFIT, Atelier RAFT
  • Photo Credits: Katerina Nedelcu, Livia Pleșca, Alexandra Berdan
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Excerpt: The Patchwork Apartment is a residential project designed by the architectural firm A+Noima. The project’s main focus was refurbishing and finding practical and easy-to-implement solutions to create multifunctional and comfortable spaces. The clients hoped they could reuse most of the furniture they already had in another area to add an extra layer to the challenge.

Project Description

[Text as submitted by Architect] The 64 sqm one-bedroom apartment with two non-detached rooms is located on the 5th floor of a block of flats in a socialist-type housing neighbourhood in Iași, Romania. Its owners decided to renovate it for rent, so the main focus of the refurbishment was to find practical and easy-to-implement solutions to create multifunctional and comfortable spaces. They hoped they could reuse most of the furniture they already had in another area to add an extra layer to the challenge.

The Patchwork Apartment | A+Noima Office
© Katerina Nedelcu
The Patchwork Apartment | A+Noima Office
© A+Noima Office

The interior design concept bears the signature of light and how it acquires different nuances from the kitchen (where there is plenty) to the bedroom (where we wanted to have less).

The Patchwork Apartment | A+Noima Office
© Katerina Nedelcu

With a generous entryway, a bright kitchen with a closed balcony and a valuable pantry space (rare in today’s real estate reality), a bedroom with access to a secondary balcony, and a living room with a lot of potentials, the patchwork apartment was more a challenge of coherence and consistency.

The Patchwork Apartment | A+Noima Office
© Livia Pleșca, © Katerina Nedelcu

Interventions in the architecture of the spaces were minimal: the walls were straightened, the door between the kitchen and the entryway was removed, the obsolete finishes (tiles, faience, parquet) were changed, and a series of previous drywall partitions were demolished, such as the wall that separated a passage area between the entryway and the bedroom, from the living room. We also opened the living area to the entrance hall through a portal-like double doorway.

The Patchwork Apartment | A+Noima Office
© Katerina Nedelcu

In the bedroom, the interventions are minimal, and the focus was kept on painting and rethinking the layout with the current furniture. 

  • The kitchen is also a generous dining area.
  • The living room has a chill-out couch, a reading spot, and a workspace.
  • The entryway is also a dressing room and a storage room. 
  • The hall towards the bedroom is a circulation space and an art gallery. 
The Patchwork Apartment | A+Noima Office
© Katerina Nedelcu, © Livia Pleșca

From a chromatic point of view, we used strategically positioned colours to highlight the functions and spaces, emphasizing the concept of the project. The decoration was conceived as an open exercise. We did not propose decorations per se but witty systems that offer plenty of space for creativity. They allow future tenants to make this apartment space of their own, to carry their fingerprints in a way that defines them.

The Patchwork Apartment | A+Noima Office
© A+Noima Office

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