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Rina Lovko’s Blue Terracotta Apartment in Kiev, Ukraine stands as a celebration of minimalism that’s unafraid of colour. The apartment’s raw material palette and sleek, uncluttered interior creates a scheme that is both strict in forms and aesthetic, but at the same time feels calm and welcoming.

The 200 square meter floor plan unfolds in a semi-circular shape. Rooms sit as smaller segments of the circle, divided by softly curving partitions. Lovko has replaced parts of the walls with glazing and integrated glass doors, allowing sunlight to penetrate even the most hidden corners of the apartment. The filtered light, now present in each space, softens the somewhat harsh language of the project, lightening the heavy materials.

The exposed concrete ceilings and columns of the apartment complex have been preserved and finished with a translucent varnish. There is a constant tension between the imperfect and the polished. The marks and indents from existing concrete formwork sit alongside the pristine lines of the built-in blue shelving unit – a moment where two design languages collide. Concrete becomes the dominant voice in the interior, the rawness of its expression acting as a counterbalance to the collection of warm materials that now sit around it.

Related: Dicentra Wholesale Flower Store in Kiev by Rina Lovko Studio.

The kitchen features a dusty terracotta hue, the wall of colour injecting the warmth into the apartment’s otherwise cold structural shell. This space becomes the heart of the home, the big island bench imagined as a meeting place for shared cooking, meandering conversation, and moments shared with friends. The tabletop is covered with terracotta tiles, its surface sewn together like a patchwork quilt – each tile a slightly different shade than its neighbour.

Custom cabinetry mirrors the minimalist quality of the design, all non-essential items safety hidden behind sleek, handle-less doors. Lovko took every opportunity to hide away the messiness of life, creating extra dressing rooms, an enclosed laundry, even replacing a TV with a projector to avoid non-essential clutter.

The unconventional radial form of this apartment presented some challenges, however, it’s somewhat complicated floorplan has produced a design that’s anything but expected.

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