A Tiny German Apartment Packed Full of Personality (and Books!)
Forty square meters (or 430 square feet) is not a lot of space to work with, but the architects of this tiny German apartment managed to squeeze a lot of living—and a lot of personality—into a very small home. Another thing they managed to fit in? Room for lots and lots of books.
The centerpiece of the apartment is the so-called “inhabitable wall”, a bookcase that stretches the length of one wall of the living room, and all the way to the ceiling. Concealed behind the bookcase is a very cozy sleeping space, accessible by a ladder. The space below serves as storage, and a fold-out desk is integrated into the wall. The palette of the living room is relatively conservative (with the exception of the bold red, light-hearted giant floor lamp), which keeps the book wall as the main focus, although a pop of pink in the loft adds just a bit of additional color.
On the opposite side of the apartment is the kitchen, which packs in a ton of character for a kitchen in an apartment this small. Above the cabinets are open shelves, backed by colorful tiles in a variety of patterns. You can also catch a glimpse, from the very top of the kitchen, of the bathroom.
Bathrooms in apartments this small are usually quite utilitarian affairs, but this one is designed for luxury, with green marble tiles, exposed copper pipes, and a soaking tub. The bathroom, like the habitable wall, efficiently occupies a very narrow footprint, but also takes into account the way that people use the spaces they inhabit—in this case, providing a spa-like bathroom experience in a very narrow sliver of space.
It’s definitely an apartment that packs in the character—and plenty of ingenuity—into a very small space. If you’d like to see more, check out the full tour at Dwell.