00:00Simplicity is something that I strive for so there's a process of finding the
00:06most simple, practical and high-performance solution. So in a small
00:12space that becomes very important because there's no room for extravagance,
00:17there's no room for excess, there is a need to make the space livable and
00:23delightful. I'm Ed Lippmann, I'm the founder of Lippmann Partnership and
00:29Mitch, my son, asked me to help him renovate his apartment. The apartment is
00:35in Darlinghurst which is an inner-city part of Sydney. It's a dense populated
00:43neighbourhood close to restaurants and shops and very close to the central
00:48business district. Mitch, his brief was, you know, he's a chef so he wanted a good
00:53kitchen and he wanted this mezzanine bed and the other requirement that he
00:59insisted on was that this should be good enough to appear on Never Too Small.
01:04Luckily, I satisfied the brief.
01:15This building was originally a Reader's Digest warehouse. It was converted into a
01:20residential apartment building 50 years later. That's why it's as high as it is,
01:253.6 metre ceiling. The goal of the design was to do more with less. We used a lot of
01:33timber because it's a sustainable material. It smells nice. So we just wanted to keep
01:38the palette very simple.
01:43Originally, when we first saw the apartment, it was pokey and dark. The
01:48light fittings were pretty ugly. The bed was in a room. The kitchen was a galley
01:55kitchen. There was an island which made the space a bit smaller. In terms of the
02:00layout of the space, it's not very different to what was here before, but the
02:04major move that we made, we elevated the loft so that the space below the bed was
02:09usable. Around the perimeter of that undercroft, there's clothing, wardrobe and a
02:15desk which has a window. The bedroom overlooks the living room, so that's very grand
02:22luxurious. When you come through the front door, you walk through the storage wall.
02:30There is a sort of a sense of arrival. With the bathroom on the right, the loft
02:36bedroom up the stairs right there, entrance to the study wardrobe and living room.
02:42A couple of steps away, there's space for shoes. The original floor was a vinyl floating
02:48floor and we put down a new timber floor, which is similar to the joinery. There's really only
02:55one material that we've used in this apartment and that's timber. I try to always get the lines
03:03working through a piece of joinery. Try to integrate the horizontal lines. It's a purely
03:08visual thing. I think it adds some beauty. It was really important that that storage wall,
03:15the kitchen, incorporates not just the kitchen but also storage area. And then
03:21taking the joinery up to the ceiling. There are things that you may not need
03:24to get access to every day of the week and so I make use of that space. The
03:30joinery is new and as you can imagine, an old building like this, the floor is not
03:34level, the ceiling is not level. It's got to be custom designed and got to make
03:38allowances for all these sort of defects in the old building. The mirrored
03:43splashback is a good idea in a small space so that when you've got your back to
03:48your guests, you can still see them and it also makes the room feel bigger. The
03:53stainless steel bench, given the fact that Mitch is a chef, that's what he's
03:57accustomed to. The fridge was here before. The gas cooktop was being thrown out by a
04:03friend of mine who was renovating his apartment. It's much more practical to
04:10have deep wide drawers. Easier to get into the back of them and it's also more
04:16practical to have one wide drawer than two narrow drawers. Mitch, he found the
04:21table nearby and lugged it in with the help of a friend I think. The chairs were
04:27also secondhand. The aluminium uplight is part of the lighting strategy for the
04:35whole apartment. It's throwing light up to create a greater sense of space. It takes
04:41your eye through the space. It's parallel to the joinery so that it's kind of
04:45part of that service zone. The living area has been stripped back to its basics so
04:53you can see the original structure. There are some beams in the space supporting
04:57the slab above and the walls were as we found it. The living area talks to the
05:05bed loft so you can sit up there and engage in what's happening down here.
05:12All the furniture was Mitch's doing. It's all secondhand. He got it off
05:16marketplace and it's quite eclectic. The apartment is suitable for
05:22flexibility. The choice of white is really just to make the space feel bigger.
05:28In a small apartment like this our approach was just to keep it all very
05:33simple and to create the warmth with the timber. The shelving between the living
05:39room and the study, it creates that permeability and transparency through the
05:44space. Because the bed itself is elevated there's sufficient headroom to walk
05:51under the mattress. It was a good use of space because it increased the usable
05:57floor area. On one side of the dressing area there's hanging space to create
06:03flexibility and transparency. The wardrobe space is not completely separated from the
06:09living room so there's a timber screen so you can get a sense that there's a room
06:13behind there. On the other side of the room underneath the stairs are storage
06:19cubicles. Space for shoes, jumpers and knitwear. No space is wasted. In the study
06:30area once you're seated you're in a nice cosy space which reminds me of a caravan or a
06:35boat. It's another experience within the apartment. The bathroom hasn't been
06:43renovated yet but it will be. The bathroom is functional as it is. There's a
06:50small bathtub, a shower, a washer and dryer, a hand basin with some storage and a
06:55toilet. The mattress is raised above the platform for two reasons. Firstly to make it
07:04easier to get into bed and secondly to create headroom in the space below. It's
07:10all made out of plywood. The floor, the bed base, the cupboards below, it's all one
07:14material and it was made in the joiners workshop and then brought here and
07:19assembled in pieces. We wanted to combine the bedroom loft with the living space.
07:27We needed some barrier to prevent an accident. We put some big timber shelves.
07:33which also act as a desk so you can sit on the floor of the bed loft and dangle
07:38your feet and write your memoirs or read a book. It also creates a screen
07:44between the bed loft and the living room. The existing window was integrated with
07:51the platform. The platform doesn't actually meet the window and the good
07:54thing about that is that it allows light through to the desk below.
08:01The approach to this project is to make things practical and livable and enjoyable
08:07to live in. So in a very small space like this one has to work a bit harder. It's a
08:12place for one person or maybe a partner so you don't really need to worry about
08:16privacy. Without those requirements the space becomes much more luxurious because
08:22it's one big volume. Rather than demolishing a building like this and building a new
08:27residential flat building, it's more sustainable to actually convert buildings
08:31like this when you use.
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