While there is often repetition in apartment building design, we decide to change up the standard so that each apartment doesn’t become a boring clone of the next apartment. In fact, how boring is it to go to your apartment and know that your apartment is exactly the same as every other apartment on the floor and in the building?
It is quite ridiculous to design in this way, that cookie-cutter way. People who purchase their own home clearly want that home to reflect their own personality, be slightly unique and have a quality they can be proud of. So why is it that in large apartment buildings where it would be financially easy to mix things up a bit that it isn’t done. The answer is simple: Architects and Interior Designers are lazy and cheap. They know that if they specify a bathroom, picking out fixtures, surfaces and hardware that they can do this for 300 apartments, charge for 300 apartments yet only have to do the exercise once. Yet it really isn’t much effort for them to do this same exercise 10 or 20 times and alternate the style of the bathrooms unit to unit. Are they afraid that the contractor will get confused? Do they really think a blue tile versus a tan tile will cost more to install? Are they just too lazy to do the work or perhaps they just don’t care. Do you really want to hire someone who is lazy and doesn’t care?
We we’re betting on that it does matter to you which is why we launched SimpleTwig Architecture.llc, to provide developers and homeowners with the best thinking architect in the business. Really, the best thinking architect? Well I have been hired by countless famous architects around the world to do just that for their business, and have designed the projects that major developers, institutions and agencies have come to see built. Now you can skip the high costs of a larger firm and go directly to the source, the mind behind the design, to get the best considered from all aspects for your own project.
But lets get back to the special qualities of this one project in Brooklyn.
ZEBRA THEME
In this article we will be looking at the variety of themes we apply to a very standard one bedroom apartment. In doing so, it creates an excitement in the building and promotes interaction with the ‘oh, can I see your apartment?’ It is this interaction which helps neighbors get to know one another and helps create a building community, one that promotes safety, cleanliness and pride. After all, happy tenants is good for the building and the landlord.
Above we see the kitchen for what we call the zebra design, that is with a strong floor design we balance it with blue ‘sky’ of varying shades. With LED colored lighting whose color can be set by the tenant, each apartment of this theme will have its own unique personality.
Despite the apartment’s small size, we offer expansive countertop space with a peninsula and sink overlooking the living area, it being large enough for seating thus avoiding the single purpose dining table.
Besides a large window, we install a lighting feature that helps meet the code requirement of lighting, making it a sculptural element who’s color is selected by the tenant. This allows it to blend into the personalized furniture the tenant has selected for their apartment.
Plenty of cabinet space and modern appliances make this kitchen a delight.
SUBDUED THEME
This theme is simply, not as loud as the Zebra Theme, to fit the personality of a different type of person, and here lies the magic of these apartment units, that the real estate agent now has a marketing tool that ‘you have to see each apartment in person to pick the theme you like the most…’ as a way to get people excited about picking their own theme reflecting their own individual personality.
And this effect is not exactly hard to accomplish and won’t cost a penny more in construction. Change the flooring material from unit to unit, the color of countertops. How has any of this impacted the square footage of the materials being used? It hasn’t. The apartment doors have numbers on them, so it’s a matter of making as we did, a chart that simply states which apartment gets which material. The rest is waiting until it all gets installed so one can view the results and ‘pick one’s favorite.’
Here, the popular dark gray-brown tones of wood flooring are broken by an inlay of a different color/pattern.
For this apartment, the ‘color splash’ comes with the choices in furnishings the tenant makes, that this theme acts as a backdrop for the life added to it. It’s soothing tones help make this apartment a place to relax.
In the next supplement article released today, we will look at the bathroom themes.
Because we have several living/kitchen and bathroom themes, we mixed and matched them so as few apartments as possible would be identical.