NEVER TOO SMALL: Mid-Century Retro Studio Apartment Sydney 26sqm/280sqft

My client for this project is a young couple. This is their first home and they are unashamedly minimalists. The apartment had been untouched for the best part of 50 years. It had very very strong 1960s and early 1970s design cues. The clients really understood and knew what they wanted. Importantly that was to maintain that very 1960s-70s sensibility. Your support on Patreon means we can keep the Never Too Small episodes coming so we can bring you more inspiring small footprint design just like this. Find out more at patreon.com slash never too small. This apartment is very near Rushcutters Bay Park and Rushcutters Bay Foreshore. It's very close to the city of Sydney and it's in a really wonderful walkable neighborhood. This building was built in The first point of their brief was to have something very open, light and airy. In the kitchen space they wanted to use a lot of timber elements to sort of hark back to that mid-century style. Retro appliances where possible and they were also very interested to have a breakfast bar come dining area so that was a very important part of their brief. The apartment was in original 50-year-old condition. There was carpet throughout and in the contained kitchen was linoleum. It was very retro and very original untouched feel. This was always a studio apartment just with a separate kitchen. The only change that we made to the floor plan was to remove the walls that encapsulated the kitchen to make a larger open space. When you enter the apartment you're immediately hit with a really lovely warm and honeyed light bouncing off the timber and the cork flooring and the warm colors within the apartment. There are concealed cupboards for umbrellas, bags, shoes. There is a folding wall seat that makes use of the space that is otherwise void and there are some playful mid-century style wall hooks above the folding wall seat. Very common in 1950s through 1980s was cork flooring and cork is a very sustainable material and it's great for acoustics so we've opted to use cork in this apartment. In the living room the function wall consists of a built-in sofa. Underneath the sofa are some drawers with mirrored fronts so they look almost like they're not there and the sofa is lighter and over the top of the sofa is a built-in queen murphy bed. When the bed is pulled down it rests on the ottoman of the sofa. For one occupant there is a fold-down bedside and for the other there is a built-in and recessed storage niche. Conveniently the wardrobe is one and a half times a conventional depth because it marries with the front face of the sofa and that means that we can hang clothes all the way along the front and then have folded storage all the way down the back. The mustard of the wardrobe matches really nicely with the mustard on the pendant lamp. The handles for the wardrobe and the handles for the fold-down bed are all custom made in the same timber as the kitchen joinery. Directly opposite the sofa is a mix of open shelving for books and concealed storage that makes use of the double depth island. They had no need for a television. The clients had a direct liking for teak and we have used the Australian grown equivalent which is Tasmanian blackwood. A breakfast bar divides the kitchen from the living space and features a dining area for two people. The breakfast bar is supported by a bespoke raw brass leg. The laminate bench top adhered to plywood is in direct reference to mid-century style when laminate bench tops were very common and they often featured a timber edge. The mirrored niche is a play on the old mid-century room dividers and the mirrors really bounce that light around and bring that sense of space to the kitchen. The tambour door unit is great because when the kitchen is in use you simply slide the door up and you have all of those things at hand. There's bulk overhead storage over the kitchen. The brown tiles used throughout the kitchen and the bathroom are direct reference to the tiles that were here prior to the removal of the old fit out. There's a series of small sconces fitted to the ceiling and to the walls that is a 1970s design. The timber surfaces wrap from the kitchen around the bathroom. A custom brass reveal lines the bathroom entry threshold. The walls are tiled floor to ceiling in a small mosaic that reference the old kitchen tile. We used custom terrazzo tiles on the floor. Brass detailing is consistent in the bathroom. The bathroom cabinetry has numerous integrated LED lighting and an intricate handle detail for opening the bathroom cabinet without putting fingerprints on the mirror. We've used curves to vary the depth of the bathroom joinery so that when you're using the area above the basin the depth is narrower and then for open shelving the depth is accentuated. We've varied the handle detail in the bathroom because it's a different space to the rest and we've opted to use a hole. Together with my clients we've taken a fairly restorative approach to the renovation of this apartment. It hadn't been touched in 50 years but with this renovation we've ensured comfortable occupation for the next 50 years. It's been upgraded with modern technology and new services we've used custom furniture and overlapping functions to achieve a really tailored space. We've basically given this apartment a second lease on life. Thanks for watching to receive updates on our latest episodes please subscribe and click the notification bell and if you're an architect or designer with a project we could feature please share it with us at nevertosmall.com submissions