Fotógrafo: Jens Bösenberg

The move from one apartment to another in the same building provided the ideal opportunity for Ester Bruzkus to revisit the same design problem with fresh ideas.

The new design - Ester’s Apartment 2.0 - is an expression of both restraint and opulence through its efficient planning. It’s 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. Its space extends from east facade to the west and sunlight enters from sunrise to sunset. It is precisely planned to offer a rich variety of spaces – and to make the most of hidden storage - despite its small actual size – just 80sq.

Both this apartment - and her first widely-published alteration - are in the so-called Estradenhaus – one of the first new apartment buildings that was built in the Prenzlauer Berg district after the fall of the Berlin wall. The raw space had been a single flexible room that featured narrow raised platforms at window walls that led to outdoor decks at the raised level. Ester Bruzkus radically altered the original space by extending the raised platforms into interior room-like spaces and by introducing a variety of carefully scaled volumes of different materials and colors. She plays off warm colors and materials with the cool concrete floor and ceiling. This play between colors and volumes define space - rather than close it off - so the apartment feels airy and flowing and comfortable.