‘Oak Tube’ Apartment | Peter Kostelov

This apartment designed by Peter Kostelov in Moscow is a testament to what a little adversity can do for making great architecture.

The apartment totals 110 m² and essentially consists of two exceedingly long and narrow spaces. When all is said and done, the space between the windows located at either end is some 16.5 meters while the spaces themselves are sometimes no more than 2.8 meters in width. So lighting is a bit of an issue. The solution was the doing away with ‘dead walls’, these were replaced with glass walls enabling the spaces to be lit from both ends and for light to be able to pass through the spaces unobstructed.

The interior treatment with light oak is a design decision that adds both to the aesthetic of the space overall, as well as to the lighting conditions within. Light reflects and bounces with more vivacity and life off these wooden planks than it would off any whitewashed plaster wall. The linearity of the space is accentuated by the horizontal running of the planks and made to feel… alive- there seems to be no other word that quite does it. Cabinets, closets, tables, shelves, beds- these things are fluidly incorporated into the ‘oak tube’ which unifies floor, wall, and ceiling. This ‘oak tube’ has a strange calming effect. It just doesn’t feel as if it is located five floors up in a building in Moscow, Russia. Instead, perhaps somewhere with an ocean nearby.

photographer © Zinon Razutdinov