APARTAMENTOS

After: "This garden buffer area serves as a way to get light inside and also act as an acoustic and privacy barrier from the street," says the firm.

Built to replace a traditional rectangular stairway, the curving open-riser staircase features extra-wide black treads that pop against white guardrails.

A sitting area and bathroom are located outside one of the bedrooms.

When the owners of this 850-square-foot apartment in Stockholm’s Södermalm neighborhood called upon local architect David Lookofsky to revive their 1920s apartment, they tasked the founder of the eponymous firm with incorporating more storage into the compact space. So, Lookofsky created a seven-meter-long kitchen wall with built-in cabinetry and a seating nook, all painted with a bright, egg-yolk yellow. “In smaller apartments, kitchens often become a kind of social hub, both in everyday life or when you have people visiting,” says Lookofsky. “You want these spaces to reflect the people who use them and support interactions and everyday life.”

Inside Out Architecture renovated an apartment in the Clerkenwell section of central London, removing interior walls to create an open, loft-like living space. The architects were taken in by the "dramatic geometry" of the existing board-formed concrete ceiling, and their design maintained and emphasized its dynamic criss-crosses and texture.

Apartment VLP by Pascali Semerdjian Architects