Boxes of carefully detailed millwork play off each other to create subtle use patterns for the penthouse apartment. The residence is designed to expand to accommodate different numbers of users: it is a pied-à-terre for a traveling couple, a place to perhaps host guests when they are there, or the location for a large party on two floors. A millwork door in the hallway serves a double purpose to help choreograph these use patterns: it usually aligns with the hallway but opens perpendicularly to direct guests away from the private quarters to the roof terrace. A second similar door does the same thing and closes off the private bedroom from a guest room. The space is therefore adjustable and expandable according to the particular needs of the users. A reduced palette of waxed pale oak, gray terrazzo and deep blues and grays maintains a consistent contemporary character across the apartment even as the space expands and contracts.

Winner of Verlag Callwey's First Prize, Most Beautiful German Apartment, BEST OF INTERIOR 2018.

The move from one apartment to another in the same building provided the ideal opportunity for Ester Bruzkus to revisit the identical design problem with fresh ideas (please click on "ester's apartment" to see what she did there) . The new design - Ester’s Apartment 2.0 - is an expression of both restraint and opulence through its efficient planning, its playful use of color, its exceptional lighting, its custom-designed furniture, and its carefully detailed material volumes. The apartment feels bright and spacious like an airy open loft because its space extends from east facade to the west and sunlight enters from sunrise to sunset. It is intricately planned to offer a rich variety of spaces – and to make the most of hidden storage despite its small actual size – just 80square meters inside.

Exterior rooms expand the concept onto the roof terrace, where a variety of outdoor volumes, spaces and framed views create a rooftop garden.

The villa in Tenerife is located on an extraordinary perch overlooking the Atlantic ocean, an immediate view of sun and sea that is divided by the very present horizon line. The challenge of the project was to transform an existing mediocre house that could not be demolished because of strict preservation laws and to integrate it into a newly designed garden of native plants. The approach was to selectively poke holes in the house, to excavate it, and to blur the separation between inside and out, architecture and landscape. Rather than see the existing building as a house in a garden, we saw the garden inside the house and the garden as the house. We literally broke down walls and floors, extended them into the land, and found spatial relationships that introduce immediate views of the outside, flowing circulation patterns, inside gardens, and local volcanic materials used both inside and out. EBA designed both the house and the garden as a continuous open flow of space and material.

The invited competition asked how to reimagine an estate of lakeside forested land with existing structures from many phases of German architectural history as a private retreat center, spa, conference facility, and family home. EBA’s design proposes to unite distinct areas of the site with a sweeping path to connect all the buildings with the lake - but also to create separate precincts for guests, a clubhouse for gatherings, a shared spa facility, and a family house transformed from a very ugly building into something surprisingly transparent and amazing. Originally built as a retreat for the Stasi secret police, the institutional hotel building was to be stripped of its plattenbau down to its concrete structure and built up again by selectively removing floors and walls and introducing surprising spatial relationships and direct contact between the inside and out. The interiors of the adjacent original Manor House were to be transformed with an approach of Both/And: by retaining the character of its historic architecture but challenging it with modernist flow and contemporary fixtures. Rooms for overnight guests were designed in a separate area of the site as aggregate courtyard houses each with their own walled garden, inside and out separated only by a plane of glass. A neighboring conference area defined a series of plazas, gardens, and shared spaces for many uses. Together, the ensemble was intended to create a dialogue between structures and sites to bridge across time.

EBA’s first apartment in the building totally transformed the original idea of the flexible loft by introducing a series of fixed and specific boxes made from rich materials and colors: white statuario marble, warm woods, deep pinks, jet blacks: all contrasted with the exposed concrete. While the ceilings were left as the underside of the prefabricated concrete structural members, the original bright blue epoxy was coated with a cool gray concrete topper. The idea is that the cool palette of the parallel planes of concrete offsets and contrasts with the warmer palette of color and material. And unlike the original open generic loft, rooms would be introduced of specific and different characters. For example, in contrast to the public spaces which are sandwiched between planes of concrete, the sleeping area is located on a raised platform near the windows where all surfaces, including ceiling and floor, are clad with warm oak – in panels, planks and slats. Inspiration for the wood sleeping box came from the traditional Japanese house where changes in room heights are used to differentiate public from private space.

The apartment is inside one of the very first ground-up buildings built in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood of East Berlin after the fall of the Wall. The apartment house, originally designed by Wolfram Popp, creates flexible and open lofts with raised platforms at the windows called estraden. The original material palette consisted of bright blue epoxy floors, wood exterior doors, metal grating and exposed concrete. EBA’s design completely transformed the generic open loft into a set of specific and richly material spaces.

A modern dream of old Berlin! Inside the historic Haus Cumberland in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Ester Bruzkus Architekten have created an apartment that interprets a historical sense of quality and space with contemporary materials, color and exquisite detailing. The design vocabulary is made from a refined palette of rich materials to translate tradition into a modern idiom: thin, opulent, modern and elegant.

The Haus Cumberland had undergone many uses and alterations since its construction in 1911 - grand hotel, post office, government ministry, cinema, film set - so the first challenge was to reestablish the apartment’s grand original planning order and sense of scale. A central hall organizes the apartment and leads to spacious and bright light-filled rooms. The hall is designed to be a minimalist modern interpretation of the old space - unifying tall doors emphasize the majestic original height, custom panel detailing recalls traditional craft in a contemporary idiom, and integrated wardrobes transform the thickness of the walls into fine cabinetry.

The color in the cabinetry unifies the hallway core with a single gray tone. The gray is also introduced as fields of color just inside the brighter exterior rooms which otherwise have a warm white tone. New oak herringbone parquet integrates the apartment with a pale, cool consistent flooring. Color and careful detailing calmly and elegantly unify doors, cabinetry and rooms across the apartment.

The two bathrooms are opulent compositions of lush material contrasts and surprises. The master bath is composed from green marble and terrazzo, textured glass, and custom mirrors and sink basin. In the other bath, one finds sage-colored ceramic tiles, terrazzo and mirrored glass. Restored stucco ceilings and contrasting simple clean planes emphasize the play between old and new.

The kitchen is an explosion of spectacular black and white granite - with a pattern that recalls Jackson Pollock’s black splash paintings. The kitchen cabinets share the detailing of the core hallway and doors so that it is treated like an elegant piece of built-in furniture to anchor a spacious and open kitchen/living/dining area.

Throughout the apartment, exquisite detailing and material selection offer a minimalist interpretation of an old possible design. A modern dream of an old Berlin that is the best of old and new.

The three buildings along Finnländische Straße in Prenzlauer Berg are contemporary, densely urban, and characterised by breaks and contrasts. The façade composition is made with projections and recesses from materials like reinforced concrete, metallic mesh and wood panelling. The interior apartments are made from warm surfaces of parquet flooring and natural stone tiling.

A New York couple’s Berlin pied-à-terre was redesigned as a quiet retreat with muted colors.

In the design, discrete volumes are in dialogue - the fireplace, the kitchen, furniture - to scale and zone the large public room. Arriving by elevator, one comes first to the kitchen, and then to the corner fireplace, designed to conceal an immobile concrete column. The kitchen cupboards, constructed of light-colored wood, blend into a single volume until the doors are opened. The living area is monochrome with vintage furniture in chartreuse and gray; the sculptured, golden side-table provides the only color accents. The extensive arrangement of large potted evergreen plants on the outside terrace extend the relaxing atmosphere past the window wall.

This exclusive city residence is on the ground floor of a new apartment building, completed in 2015, located in Gartenstrasse, central Berlin. An area of garden is inclusive.

The unorthodox layout of the interior space is overseen by an angular bathroom area with dividing wall. The design unites and regulates, with three main elements combining minmalism and coordination in concert. Clever use of ceiling panels and interior lighting provide subtle divisions between the areas. There is a classic mix of light grey concrete and elegant, oiled oak for the floor, combined with a striking matt-black kitchen surface. The steep angles of the kitchen furniture offset the combination with perfect coordination, looking out onto the open dining area and dividing the sleeping quarters behind. This sleeping area is connected to the bathroom by a passage behind a sensibly designed screen wall of high quality laminate, with built-in wardrobes completing the ensemble.

The shower has a dividing wall encrusted in beautiful black mosaic tiles, accenting the area with understated style. Expert design with creative verve, has given this space, though small in area, the spacious character of a gallery.

A penthouse for a married couple near Ludwigkirchplatz in Berlin Wilmersdorf.

Excepting the external dimensions and the staircase and elevator core, the ground plan and design of this apartment was completely in the hands of the architects. The elevator opens directly into the apartment. The living and dining area – lit from two sides – and the kitchen, are grouped around the elevator core. There are no dividing walls here: functions merge seamlessly into each other and can, if needed, be visually separated by sliding doors. As soon as one enters the apartment, one’s eye falls on the fireplace wall with its built-in cabinets and drawers. A of Pietra gray marble bench in front of the fireplace continues over the entire width of the living and dining room and becomes a generous seating and shelf space.

An exclusive herringbone pattern oak floor runs through the entire apartment. A walnut-panelled box containing additional features such as the wardrobes, guest bathroom, library, and kitchen cabinets, encloses the elevator core. In contrast to the living area, the zone for private retreat is smaller-scale in structure. A central hallway separates the two bedrooms, each with an en-suite bathroom.

This Moscow-based couple’s second home is located on the ground floor of a classical villa in the Grunewald district of Berlin. Its doors lead directly to a generous garden.

As part of the new design, the space was first simplified to the essentials by removing all decorative surface elements such as stucco, friezes, trim and coffering — especially since these were damaged or in poor condition. The result presents clear gallery-style rooms. The atmosphere is accentuated by a minimalistic lighting concept from PSLab.

The furniture and fittings are positioned like exhibits in front of sheer white walls. A pale gray concrete floor is combined with soaped ash and nero marquina marble on the kitchen island and in the bathroom, as well as on the long built-in bench in the living room that becomes a fireplace. Between the kitchen and the entrance hall stands a “box” containing wardrobes, kitchen cupboards and a surprise power room with mirrors on all surfaces. In the kitchen, a central counter block integrates seating for breakfast with a view to the garden.

The clarity of the design is underlined by hiding all hardware and by completely avoiding the use of door handles. Even the refrigerator door opens simply via gentle pressure – and with the help of an integrated motor. A wall with two entrances divides the kitchen from the living/dining areas where a large dining table sits under special light fixtures and the living area is defined by marble on two walls.

The design for a photographer’s Berlin loft is a convergence of the architect’s and the photographer’s vocabulary: a conversation between light, form and materials – and the opportunity to infuse black and white with color. The design strategy introduces architectural volumes of different material qualities that act in dialogue with each other: the spaces between create the settings for domestic life - or for an awesome party.
The apartment occupies a well-lit L-shaped space of a former hat factory in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The existing container was treated to maintain the feeling of its original industrial character - floors are concrete and the ceiling structure was left exposed. In between, though, a warmer palette of woods, metals and stones create a set of contrasts that define the living space.

Small rooms are treated as “boxes” that play off the industrial shell – a block of generous storage rooms is painted white – and a guest toilet, completely mirrored on its interior, is painted black. This play between black and white sets the framework for other colors and materials. A warmer wooden “box” straddles a neutral white container and becomes the main bathroom. Built-in cabinetry and furniture are treated like large masses too – the kitchen is a large block of green forest marble; the couch and piano define a living area around a stripe of stone that becomes a hearth. Carpets define zones that act as rooms within rooms.

The formal strategy takes best advantage of the overlap between the interests of the photographer and the architect: the relationship of volumes and light. Or, as Le Corbusier famously wrote in 1923: “Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of volumes brought together in light.”