ARS Apartment is located on the topmost floor of a 1920s building in the historic part of the city of Cluj-Napoca. Although considering its privileged position, due to the fact that almost all of its windows are north oriented and almost all of them open towards the inner courtyard of the building, the apartment’s major drawback is the lack of direct sunlight.
The ambition of the project was thus to increase the number of hours and quantity of direct sun light and, in so doing, to increase the quality of life of the occupants. The goal was met through [1] the demolition of the wall separating the kitchen and the living room obtaining an ‘L’ shaped mono-volume space which receives direct sunlight from the west oriented kitchen window, [2] by cutting a glazed opening in the wall separating the office from the living room and allowing, thus, direct sunlight in the living room from the south oriented office window and finally, [3] by the restoration of the interior doors and their repainting in solar colors.
Other features of the design include, but are not limited to, the restoration of all of the exterior joineries, the uncovering of the buildings essence by revealing two different typologies of brickwork, one in the living room, and another in the bedroom, the reinterpretation of 1920s honeycomb monochromatic ceramic flooring and the custom made multipurpose wardrobe which nests a seating area near the apartment’s entrance, hides the boiler and the entrance to the bathroom and marks the beginning of the living room.
Design Team: Anamaria Moldovan, Paul-Mihai Moldovan, Eszter Szoke
Collaborator[s]: Florin-Vasile Lazar
Design Year: 2015
Status: Completed
Execution | Completion Year: 2016
Location: Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Net area: 89,23 sqm
Furniture Manufacturer: Furni Mobile
Text: ateliercetrei
Photographer[s]: ateliercetrei, Ovidiu Micsa