Park Towers

The brief was refreshingly simple. Beyond the basics, the owners needed a bigger living area to relax in and one guest room for when the children came back. Since they rarely cooked, we shrank the kitchen and opened it up, which handed the extra space straight to the living room. The flat had three bedrooms but they only needed two, so we turned the third into an ensuite, extending the drainage across the room and covering the pipe with a raised floor, dimensions a walk-in closet then used perfectly.

The real puzzle was the geometry. The living-room walls met the entrance at a sharp 135-degree angle, which made arranging furniture anything but straightforward. To cut down the awkward angles, we set the TV into a corner aligned with the sofa and the main corridor, and the triangular gap left behind the set turned out perfect for ventilation. We tucked vertical blinds behind it too, so when the daylight gets strong the owner can close them and keep the glare off the screen.

With so many odd angles, the key was to pull attention away from the walls. Rather than push the furniture back, we floated it in the middle of the room to keep people circulating freely on every side. Then we played down the corners with mirror surfaces on cabinet doors and columns, and swapped the original little windows for a single pane of glass that brings Victoria Harbour right in. Pops of blue through the black-and-white scheme give the whole space its accent.