Zen and the art of mindset maintenance in a former warehouse in east London
Once forming part of a warehouse, the flat, which has a footprint of 129 sqm, has been entirely overhauled by Julie Richards, a Nottinghamshire-based architect who cut her teeth under Zaha Hadid before founding her own practice in 2002. The apartment is a convincing testament of Julie’s approach, a deft exercise in the handling of light and the way it plays through space and across materials, creating, as the architect herself has said, “reflections [on] opaque surfaces, refraction through transparent layers and projections on to translucent screens”.
The considered interiors help to underscore this feeling. Nothing here shouts or demands attention, but instead, elegant clean-lined furniture and fitting lend an air of simplicity to the spaces, which become places of rest, retreat or relaxation. Colour, too, does a similar job. The limited palette here – soft grey, purest white, the hazy blue of textured glass – here doesn’t seek to compete with anything, rather to complement and to invite calmness in the process.
It isn’t hard to imagine life here: an intimate candlelit supper with friends, a night with a book on the sofa, a soak in that luxurious bathroom that almost appears to glow. Take a moment, breathe and you might just find that light is not the only thing prone to reflection.
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