Perfectly Positioned
IN A HISTORIC AREA OF KYIV, A BLAND APARTMENT IS RENEWED AS A CASUAL WEEKEND GETAWAY
With all the hallmarks of a laid-back beach house — whitewashed walls, pale wood furniture, creamy upholstery — the apartment is a moment of calm in the Podil district of Kyiv. But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, when interior designer Yana Molodykh first visited the location at the behest of its owners, a recently retired couple wanting a weekend pied-à-terre in the culturally rich neighbourhood, her initial thought was “How can I make something decent out of this?”
Located on the eighth floor, the 50-square-metre apartment was originally intended as the a£tic level of a new-build multi-unit residence, until the developer decided to add on five more storeys. While the building grew skyward, the unit retained its strong lo¡ty elements, like pitched walls and exposed steel I-beams and columns (and sweeping views of the surrounding area, which is known for its eclectic mix of architectural eras, from ancient to modern), but li£tle else was worth keeping. So Molodykh started over. “Nothing original was le¡t; we even changed the windows,” she says.
One of the biggest challenges: how to deal with all those steel structural bones that imposed on the layout. “The metal beams and columns split the right side of the apartment into sections and I had to fit the rooms — part of the living room, the bedroom and dressing room — between them,” Molodykh explains. To overcome this spatial conundrum, the main area was divided into two and furnished with pieces that wouldn’t overwhelm: On one side, the designer grouped a high-backed sofa from Ukrainian manufacturer Delavega and two Fred armchairs by Jaime Hayon for Fritz Hansen to create a cozy corner for relaxing and intimate gatherings; on the other end of the room, a dining table from Buro 150 (the Kyiv-based modern furniture brand owned by the son and daughter-in-law of the clients and a go-to for Molodykh when specifying for projects) and Sami Kallio’s In Between chairs from &Tradition form an eating nook.
To imbue the space with an airy and peaceful atmosphere, Molodykh painted all the walls, beams and columns in the same “warm shade of wet clay” and replaced the flooring with made-to-order wide planks of tinted ash. In a nod to the older houses in the area, in which wooden beams were traditionally used to separate storeys, a ceiling of pine planks, oiled to highlight the rich graining, was installed. A partition separating a small kitchen from the main living space was removed to open things up and let light from the windows filter throughout; also in the kitchen, protruding mechanical ducts were sheathed in oak wood to resemble pilasters, and new oak cabinetry and speckled black countertops completed the nowmore-functional room. Elsewhere, Molodykh designed tinted-oak built-in shelving units that frame the dining corner and o¡fer spots for storage and display. Similar millwork (all by local studio Workshop ST.¢) was also installed in the bedroom.
Normally one to use a lot of colour, Molodykh practiced restraint here, only layering in curated accents of ma£te black, terraco£ta, blue and red in a “graphic allusion to constructivism.” For the owners, who both grew up in the seaside resort town of Kherson in Southern Ukraine, the breezy character of the newly refreshed apartment is the perfect home away from home to entertain family and friends and engage with Podil’s cultural life.