The Cabinet Room

Like many city-dwellers, a young couple needed to extend the utility of their apartment when their family grew. Their loft apartment, though spacious, could not afford privacy or adaptability when their newborn child grew into a toddler and his ever-growing collection of toys started to overtake the open space.

Realizing quickly that the cost to move outweighed the cost to expand –inwardly—we devised a hybrid cabinet/room that is at once a playful interior sleeping space for a child and an elegant entertainment space for the adults on the outside; while also vastly expanding their storage space through an installation that can move with them.

The cabinet/room, in essence, provides for a compact interface to navigate the duality of their unique needs: their accustomed liking of open loft living and the challenges that come with a growing family. In responding to the brief, we took detailed stock of the existing conditions (from storage needs, to light and air, and the natural flow of the users within the unit) and attempted to integrate it to the apartment with minimal disruption to the existing space.

Rebal Knayzeh