London’s housing stock blends eras—Victorian terraces, repurposed warehouses, and Art Deco blocks—often yielding interiors that feel confined yet offer rich potential. Five recent projects demonstrate how small spaces can appear spacious when design works with limitations instead of opposing them. Architects consistently highlight three strategies: playing with materials, controlling light, and using color to alter perception without expanding floor area.
Shoji Apartment: Glowing Privacy in Belsize Park
The Shoji Apartment, created by Proctor & Shaw inside a 19th-century Victorian building in Belsize Park, transforms constraints into a defining aesthetic. At its core sits a sleeping pod clad in translucent polycarbonate panels, evoking traditional Japanese shoji screens. By night, the pod emits a lantern-like glow, bathing the open-plan living, dining, and kitchen area in soft light. During daylight hours, expansive bay windows flood the space with natural illumination, reducing reliance on artificial sources.
Warm textures, birch plywood, clay plaster walls, and linoleum flooring, unify the design while the pod’s translucency softens transitions between private and communal zones. The result achieves both intimacy and openness, illustrating how light and material choice can visually expand confined dimensions.
Further visual documentation, including photography by Ståle Eriksen, appears in the full case study here.
Mia’s Apartment: Light and Mobility in a Victorian Terrace
Nina Tolstrup of Studiomama describes the original state of Mia’s Apartment, a ground-floor Victorian terrace, as “a maze of obstructive walls.” The redesign eliminated a central sun-blocking partition, allowing daylight to traverse the entire 40-square-meter footprint. Functional areas, sleeping nooks, bathroom, kitchen, and study, now line the perimeter, with sliding doors and movable partitions preserving privacy when required.
The study, lined with Douglas fir, overlooks both the living area and garden, reinforcing outdoor connections. Custom furnishings, a curved sofa and diamond-shaped dining table, anchor the space without dominating it. The design prioritizes circulation, ensuring every surface serves multiple roles while the absence of superfluous walls maintains an open atmosphere.
Photography by Billy Bolton and a complete tour are available here.
Poirot’s Bijou Apartment: Art Deco Adaptations
Within Florence Court, the fictional residence of Hercule Poirot, Anna Parker of Intervention Architecture reimagined a 30-square-meter unit to balance preservation requirements with contemporary living. Pale plywood joinery creates flexible storage, including a Murphy bed, convertible sofa, and collapsible dining table. The kitchen stands out with bright blue cabinetry, while the bathroom features soft pink tiles, each hue signaling its purpose under one cohesive roof.
Art Deco heritage guided the approach: joinery conceals storage while preserving the building’s original character. Despite its size, every element serves a clear function, with structured joinery and bold colors preventing any sense of confinement.
Additional imagery and a tour appear here.
Alaska Building: Textural Warmth in Southeast London
Louise Glynn of Studio 29 Architects transformed a ground-floor unit in southeast London into a home for her son, emphasizing light and texture over conventional layouts. A double-height ceiling accommodated a mezzanine level for sleeping areas. Rejecting London’s typical monochrome palette, she incorporated raw pink plaster, birch plywood furniture, and weathered metal finishes to introduce warmth.
Even unconventional details, such as a bathroom requiring users to duck, serve intentional purposes, encouraging engagement with the space. Floating lanterns above the dining table and built-in storage in every corner create a home that feels personal rather than merely functional. Glynn’s method reflects how Londoners historically adapted to tight quarters by integrating constraints into the design process.
Photography by Tarry + Perry and further details are available here.
King’s Cross Apartment: Chromatic Expansion
Sarah Leanor applied color theory to a 40-square-meter apartment in a historic King’s Cross building, making it appear larger through strategic hues. Each room adopts a distinct tone: green in the kitchen, yellow in the bathroom, blue in the bedroom, and red in the living area. These bold choices define separate zones while maintaining visual cohesion.
Storage solutions were optimized without altering the existing layout. The living room, for instance, functions as a home office, guest room, or dining space thanks to an expandable coffee table seating six. Victorian-era elements, green glazed tiles and copper accents, add character without clutter. Leanor’s strategy centered on creating distinct, cozy areas while enhancing perceived spaciousness.
Photography by Anna Batchelor and a full tour are available here.
Modern London apartments frequently thrive when they accept spatial limits as creative opportunities. Unlike earlier periods, where compact living was purely practical, today’s designs treat constraints as inspiration. This evolution mirrors broader urban trends: effective use of space depends less on square footage than on how inhabitants experience it.
