Unique Ways to Design with Recessed Space

Copenhagen-based architect Martin Kallesø was tasked with a simple program: create a freestanding guest room so that visitors have a private place to lay their heads. The interior is small, but comfortable. It fits a double bed, coffee table, and chair. The bed is recessed into the wall so as not to waste any space.

Architect Grant explains that the recessed orange wall with built-in storage shelving is a counterpoint to the view of Boston in the opposite direction.

Like many apartments in early 20th-century row houses, architect Philip Ryan’s Brooklyn abode was the epitome of spatial inefficiency before reconfiguring the space. “If you put a lot of small things into a small space, it can feel twice as small,” Ryan says. “If you have an object with heft and mass, it makes everything feel larger. It seems contradictory, but it works.” This philosophy inspired space-saving techniques throughout the apartment, including the quirky window sill flowerpot recess.

The cedar weatherboard ceiling in the living pavilion features triangular recesses for lightbulbs.

A minimalist approach to design can make spaces feel thoughtful, bright, and more spacious than they really are—qualities that are paramount to a recent project in Poznań by Polish architecture firm mode:lina. The architects employed several tricks to make the home feel more spacious. Among them, mirrors were installed to visually enlarge the room, and smart storage spaces—even a recessed dog house—were built directly into the home’s walls. “The less visible [storage is], the better,” they say.