00:13The apartment is inside the Barbican estate which was built between 1965 and 1976 in central London.
00:22It contains about 2,000 flats of different sizes, different modules.
00:30The Barbican estate has multiple arts facilities, so there's a concert hall, there's an exhibition hall.
00:38Within the estate there are two private gardens, there's a large pond.
00:43The Barbican Centre was grade 2 listed in 2001, surprisingly was voted one of London's most ugliest buildings in 2003,
00:53so it's a bit of a hate or love building.
00:56Architects like it, designers like it, I guess because of its brutalist architecture it's not really to everyone's taste.
01:08The total area of the studio apartment is 41 square metres.
01:14The apartment was pretty much in its layout as its original state.
01:20It was just one big open space.
01:23There was no subdivision, it was just a storage cupboard, a kitchen and a bathroom.
01:30We introduced a large central piece of furniture that basically created then the subdivision of areas.
01:41When you enter the room, you enter into the kitchen area and into the living space
01:48and then you sort of walk around the central unit in order to get to the bedroom.
01:57The living area is the part of the flat closest to the window and the balcony.
02:09At night you can draw the curtain in front of the sleeping area.
02:13And additionally you can also draw the curtain in front of the windows.
02:17So if you do have occasionally guests, they can sleep sort of in the living room
02:22and there's still a degree of division between you.
02:29The central unit is partially storage space for other sort of knick-knacks you have in the house.
02:39Also for display of nice vases and objects.
02:43It also hides the washing machine.
02:47Also is partially wardrobe.
02:52And it's one coherent element which uses the same materials as the kitchen and the bathroom.
02:59So there's very few added materials within the house.
03:03So you kind of have a degree of fluidity between the different zones.
03:09Kitchen design, it's very personal.
03:11For example they don't cook an awful lot.
03:13The owner decided that they prefer not to have a dishwasher for example.
03:19So it's all relatively minimal.
03:21So they have a small hob, a small fridge and the sink is further tucked away
03:27so that when you're sitting in the living area, once you see the kitchen
03:31it looks more like the extension of the living room rather than a kitchen with a lot of mess.
03:39The sleeping area inside the flat is backed onto the bathroom.
03:44So there is a panel that slides across and opens up a bookshelf.
03:50And if it slides across the other side it basically screens the bathroom
03:54to get some natural light from the large window at the front.
04:00So the bathroom has remained in its place.
04:04It's fundamentally remained its shape.
04:07The main intervention was that we created a window into the bedroom.
04:13Whenever you use the bathroom the least time you spend on the toilet.
04:16So the toilet is actually hidden away into a box.
04:20So you can use it to get ready, to dry yourself, so you can sit on top of it without
04:27sitting on the toilet.
04:28It's like an old fashioned kind of wooden seat with a lid on it.
04:36This was built in the 50s, 60s.
04:38The need for living was very different than it is now.
04:41Taking an existing space and just give it a more up to date function I suppose.
04:47Where architects are relevant is they really need to understand what the client wants,
04:54what your client needs and to turn it into the perfect space for them.
05:01After all about it is the bathroom with the bathroom.
05:13The house is bare with the room and the toilet.
05:20The room is back looking at the bathroom and the bathroom,
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