Apartment Red Dot is a small flat in the center of Prague, made for guests who come to the city for a few days and want a place with more personality than a hotel room. It is a little eccentric on purpose. The budget was modest. The ideas were not.
The brief started from a simple observation about how people travel. On holiday, guests spend their days out in the city, so the apartment needs to give them a good night's sleep, a proper shower, somewhere to sit with a coffee, and a little character to remember it by. That set the priorities from the start. Space was tight, so every corner had to earn its place.
To free up the floor, we gathered the services into one freestanding volume in the middle of the plan. This warm grey box holds the bathroom, the kitchenette, the wardrobes and the television wall. Everything else is arranged around it, so the living room, the dining table and the bedroom all share the same open floor and the tall street windows along the facade. Guests can walk around the box in a loop, and the apartment never feels divided into small rooms, even though each activity has its own clear place.
To free up the floor, we gathered the services into one freestanding volume in the middle of the plan. This warm grey box holds the bathroom, the kitchenette, the wardrobes and the television wall. Everything else is arranged around it, so the living room, the dining table and the bedroom all share the same open floor and the tall street windows along the facade. Guests can walk around the box in a loop, and the apartment never feels divided into small rooms, even though each activity has its own clear place.
The bedroom is calm and simple. A grey upholstered bed faces the tall arched window, which still has its original proportions, softened by a white roman blind. A line of hidden light runs along the wall at shoulder height, and a delicate white pendant with small dome shades hangs beside the bed for reading. Opposite, a slim red desk on hairpin legs and a small white stool make a corner for writing a postcard or checking the next day's plans. Round porcelain switches sit in a neat row above a small white bedside shelf, a quiet nod to the period of the building.
The bathroom follows the same open spirit. It is entered through a sliding door of fluted glass, and inside everything is pale and smooth: large light tiles, a floating white vanity, a basin with a red tap and a round mirror above it. A walk in shower is closed only by clear glass. From the bedroom you can look straight through to the mirror and the tall red towel radiator, which becomes almost a sculpture on the white wall. In a holiday apartment this openness feels playful, and it helps a small footprint read as one generous space.
The palette across the flat is light: pale oak laid in a chevron pattern, soft white walls and the muted grey of the central box. Against that calm base, the living room takes on one strong color. A deep green wraps the wall, the built in wardrobe and the open shelving, where books about Prague, small objects and a few red accents are on display. A grey lounge chair with a footstool sits by the window, and a soft sofa faces a round silver rug with a red side table and a pair of white tables that can be pulled apart. At the end of the room, the original paneled double door with its fluted glass insert leads back to the entrance.
The entrance hall gets its own color too. Here a saturated blue covers everything, walls, ceiling and fitted shelves included, with hooks for coats and a low bench for shoes and luggage. A large round mirror on the white end wall doubles the space and catches the light. Even in this small corridor, the blue door is opened through a round cut out lined in red.
Then there is the red. Almost every detail a guest touches is the same bright shade: the round handles cut into the green and blue doors, the knobs on the kitchen cabinets, the porcelain switches on the grey box, the taps, the ring on the fluted glass door, the slim desk by the window. Repeated through the flat, these small dots work like a thread that ties the rooms together, and they gave the apartment its name.
With limited money and limited floor area, the project relies on one clear move in the plan and one color used with discipline. The building's original doors, cornices and tall windows were kept, and the new elements sit beside them without trying to imitate them. Guests notice the result the moment they walk in, and that is exactly what a short stay deserves.
Project Information
Type: Short stay rental apartment, interior renovation
Place: Prague, Czech Republic
Realization: 2019
Photography: Tomáš Dittrich
