Header: Nick Rudenko and Olga Karapetian
Interior design studio Alexander Tischler recently worked with a young and active family with a school-going son in the new contemporary residential complex “Richard” in Moscow, turning it into a bright and functional space. The clients were keen on having colours, prints, and patterns, and the team worked hard to fulfil their desires. First, the team designed a comfortable living space by enlarging the bathroom and allocating a dressing room in the master bedroom, then filled the space with bright, colourful blocks.
“We enjoyed working on an unusual task—to fill in the interior with colour. White is at the core of finishing, while each room and even bathrooms have their own colour and texture combinations. While choosing the colours of furniture, finishing, and décor, we used the basic ones—blue, red, and green. […] We made spaces more architectural due to straight lines and volumes.”
Alexander Tischler design company
The Kitchen and Dining Area
The kitchen is composed of three blocks: dark blue lower modules that appear elevated due to their white base, upper wall cabinets divided into squares and rectangles, and monolithic column cabinets with built-in appliances.
The ceiling adds geometry to the space with its multilevel design. An air supply ventilation duct is behind the volume above the TV, while an air supply grille and an air duct leading to the children’s room and the parents’ bedroom are behind the volume above the kitchen. Rather than levelling down the entire ceiling, which would have affected the spatial perception, another volume of the ceiling was allocated in the centre of the room with lamps randomly placed on it.
A niche in the kitchen area, created by the developer, was leveraged in the best way possible. An air handling unit and a noise suppressor were added to prevent noise from spreading through the air ducts and being heard in the rest of the house. The air handling unit can be accessed through a hatch in the rear wall of the central cabinet, a solution that not only levels the room’s geometry but also takes advantage of any usable space.
Another block in this room are the wall panels finished with ash veneer that create a visual separation between the kitchen and the recreation area. For the dining area, a blue table with a laconic base was chosen, which can be easily extended to comfortably accommodate all the guests. An unusual textured solution was found for the wall behind the table: relief gypsum panels that, with their randomness, add lightness to the interior. Glass-shaded lamps were hung above the table, reflecting the surrounding area when turned off and emitting a soft glow when turned on.
The Living Room and Open-Plan Entrance
The entrance to the open-plan room posed a challenge. The clients were upset that this opening was in a load-bearing wall, making it impossible to remove the upper part and extend it to the ceiling. An unusual solution was implemented: a cornice just under the ceiling with a bright blue curtain. This not only draws the space upwards but also acts as a divider between the kitchen-living room and the rest of the apartment if needed. The living room area is furnished with simple-shaped furniture: a sleek hanging TV cabinet and a bright red coffee table.
The Corridor and Hallway
After the redevelopment, a corridor now leads to the bedrooms and guest bathroom. To prevent the interior from being divided by the dark zone of the corridor and to ensure daylight penetration, a glass panel door was installed in the children’s room. The corrugation ensures the privacy of the clients’ son, making it impossible to see what he is doing in his room.
In the hallway, a suspended console matching the colour of the kitchen furniture was installed. Relief tiles in the hallway have hooks for hanging outerwear, originally intended for towels in the bathroom but fitting perfectly into the hallway design. On the opposite side of the front door, a floor-to-ceiling mirror was placed. The wardrobe for outerwear was moved further down the corridor, making use of some space in the kid’s room.
The Children’s Room
The walls in the kid’s room were decorated using two types of wallpaper: one with a watercolour gradient and the other with lines that look hand-drawn. Models that came in large sheets were selected to ensure application without any visible seams. The window sill was made from quartz stone containing small black inclusions. A full-height closet for the kid’s clothes and toys was designed and produced, blending nicely into the interior thanks to its small black handles.
The Master Bedroom and Dressing Room
A dressing room was added in the elongated master bedroom, leading to the bathroom. The dressing room includes a small rack with built-in lighting for bags, cabinets with shelves, drawers, open rails, and a ceiling-height mirror. This dressing room was made “in blocks”: beige volumes combined with green and burgundy ones. The green block is a utility closet where items like an ironing board, iron, and other household items can be stored. Additionally, sockets were included inside the cabinet for added convenience.
In the bedroom, contrasting colours were combined more boldly: a bed with a burgundy headboard was placed against the background of a spruce wall. Red-frosted glass lamps were hung on the sides of the bed, filling the entire lampshade with a soft gradient when turned on. The clients did not want a TV in the bedroom, so a projector was hung above the bed, broadcasting the image onto a flat white wall opposite.
On the bedroom side, the closet in the dressing room is functional: the left part is a shelving unit with lighting that can be turned on by waving a hand, and the right holds a module for equipment that can be connected to a projector or a TV set-top box. An air intake grille was also installed on the mezzanine part of the cabinet, with purified air supplied through a grille located above the entrance to the bedroom.
For the master bathroom, salmon-coloured sanitary ware was chosen, along with two types of small tiles: smooth white and textured matte ones.
The Guest Bathroom
The most daring combinations were selected for the guest bathroom. Multi-coloured handmade tiles, rich burgundy furniture, and the same shade of paint for the walls were used. The sink was built-in, the wide mirror was enclosed in a thin burgundy frame, and a playful lamp was chosen to support the pattern of the tiles. A column cabinet for the washing machine and dryer was installed up to the ceiling. It has a grille on the side for airflow and an exhaust ventilation diffuser at the top.
