Ester Bruzkus Architekten transformed the top-floor apartment into a cozy home for a Berlin couple living a vegan lifestyle.

The apartment uses strong colors, natural materials, precise planning, contrasts of cool and warm – and a few surprises. By locating a single but complex green millwork box at the center of the long apartment, circulation can flow around all sides and the design makes the most of existing material conditions. The palette of rich colors and materials contrasts with neutral raw concrete walls and ceilings to harmonize cool and warm.

Photos ©Robert Rieger, Courtesy of Ester Bruzkus Architekten.

In addition to the deep green of the central millwork are a rich palette of other materials – travertine, marble, limestone, quartzite, glasses of different characters, brass, stainless steel, and rich colored fabrics. Because the owners are vegan, no animal products were used – for example, the carpet is hand-tufted from botanical silks. The hearth is made from travertine Sierra ebru stone, red travertine, brass, and thin plates of stainless steel.

Before Ester Bruzkus Architekten transformed the top-floor apartment into a cozy home for a Berlin couple living a vegan lifestyle, the empty apartment had floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides and exposed concrete walls on the other sides. It was raw and cool and open – and there was something nice about that to hold onto in the new design. So rather than create a series of conventional rooms that would close off the sense of openness, a single millwork box was positioned away from the walls to make rooms between it and the existing walls.

The effect of the apartment is a study in contrasts: a mix of efficient planning with exuberant materials and colors and textures – all between planes of cool concrete. Peter Greenberg explains the simple planning idea: “This is the essential strategy of Mies’ Farnsworth House – a box of richly contrasting material inside another box.” The apartment deploys this simple planning strategy, contrasting materials and colors, and carefully crafted details to make a home that is at once cool and cozy.

The kitchen takes up one of the long sides of the green box (hidden within is also a roll-out modular sauna!). Sheets of natural green-and- violet quartzite work with the lacquered wood. The cooking island combines the quartzite and the lacquered wood with black-tinted glass, and is covered by a playful and sculptural lighting by PSLab, who provided all of the lights for the apartment. An important detail of the green box is that the ceiling is part of the box and is held away from the concrete ceiling. In this way, the “box” is not just a freestanding object but it makes rooms.

Walls of mirrored glass playfully reflect the green box and the exposed concrete shell, Photos ©Robert Rieger, Courtesy of Ester Bruzkus Architekten.

The box, lacquered in a deep green, works with warm golds and violets and brown tones to play off the cool concrete ceiling and wall, contrasting materials and colors, and carefully crafted details to make a home that is at once cool and cozy.

It is a really simple idea – to put one box in the middle of the space – but it does so much.
— Ester Bruzkus

The bathroom occupies the space between the green box and the existing wall. Sinks are made from green marbles, black steel and pink basins; the shower and bathtub are made from a pale limestone that harmonizes with the other tones. The design also uses the simple geometry of the circle in a number of ways: in the design of handles for the cabinetry, in an oversized round mirror, and in a circular skylight that was built above the shower. All of the materials are brought together with the careful detailing that characterizes the work of Ester Bruzkus Architekten.

The bathroom sinks are made from green marble, black steel door fronts and pink CORIAN basins.

The bathroom cabinet door’s exterior is lacquered in gray; the interior of the handle is dusty pink. The design uses the simple geometry of the circle in a number of ways: in the design of handles for the cabinetry, in an oversized round mirror, and in a circular skylight that was built above the shower.

Photos ©Robert Rieger, Courtesy of Ester Bruzkus Architekten.

The guest sink (top right) is a composition of green marble. In the mirror, one can see a circular skylight that was built above the shower in the ceiling of the green box.

Partner Peter Greenberg explains: ‘To be a good designer, one has to be a good listener: not only to the needs of the clients, but also to the space – the building really tells you what it wants to be. We think good design combines rational and logical planning with playful contrasts of materials and forms.”

Ester Bruzkus Architekten
https://esterbruzkus.com

Founded in 2002 in Berlin, Ester Bruzkus Architekten is an architecture and interior design practice with global ties: Berlin, New York, Paris, Tel Aviv, Boston, Dubai, Moscow, Vladivostok, Tenerife. We have extensive experience with design at many scales: from the design of tables and furniture to exquisite residences and workspaces to international theatres, restaurants and hotels.

Straight lines, precise planning, material contrasts – and plenty of surprises. The architecture of Ester Bruzkus and her team makes use of contrasts of thick and thin, sharp and soft, curved and straight, rough and smooth, common and opulent, colorful and restrained, playful and well-resolved. Special projects result from a dialogue of space and light, materiality and color, existing constraints and new opportunities – and especially a synergy between the needs of the client, the space and the aspirations of great design.

All Photos ©Robert Rieger, Courtesy of Ester Bruzkus Architekten.