Mix It Up

After leaving his city of origin — where his family still resides — to pursue a life in Moscow, interior designer Alexandra Potapova’s client wanted to give his parents the opportunity to visit him as often as they’d like. This was the starting point for this residential project by the young architect, who is the founder of Workshop Studio. The brief was simple: design this pied-à-terre, which developed into a home inspired by the constructivist aesthetic of the buildings that surround it. Potapova decided to form a connection between the architecture of the surrounding buildings with the interior design. “I tried to create a signature style for this project,” she says. “I mixed brutalist materials and forms, with cosy details.”

Spread over 70 sqm, the apartment comprises a hallway, an open plan living room with a kitchen, master bedroom, second en suite bedroom and a laundry room. Potapova had carte blanche to fully implement her idea of merging Scandinavian and constructivist design aesthetics.

She picked one colour — light grey — for both the walls and the ceilings with the objective of making the space, as she describes, “even and smooth, while putting more emphasis on the furniture and décor.” The timber floors give a feeling of warmth while the use of burgundy in the living room doorway, combined with chrome details, add a pleasing, pared back array of colour and metallic accents. “The hardest thing to do was to break the marble slabs to create an ornament on the floor in the hallway. I did it on my own because it was crucial to replicate the original method of breccia flooring,” says the designer.

Inspired by books, travels, the surrounding area and her studies at the Moscow Institute of Architecture, the young interior designer successfully bridged the gap between past and present.

“To pay tribute to the Soviet theme, I applied silver hand-carved handles on the kitchen cabinets, lace curtains in the living room and vintage furniture including the bar cart, Wassily armchair by Marcel Breuer and some lighting,” Potapova says. Several contemporary pieces also feature, such as the Menu sofa by Norm Architects in the living room, the Pavilion stools by Anderssen & Voll from &Tradition in the kitchen, the Mezcla table by Jaime Hayon from &Tradition in the dining nook and the pink Roly Poly armchair by Faye Toogood from Driade in the main bedroom. “My favourite area is the living room,” Potapova confesses. “It combines several zones in a relatively limited space, making it homey.”

Thanks to her clear approach, the Potapova struck a balance between contrasting cultural references and eras to shape a one-of-a-kind home.