Elm Park Gardens is a renovated duplex apartment in London’s South Kensington.
With minimal intervention, Studio XM was able to turn an impersonal apartment into a colorful and invigorating space. Elm Park Gardens is an example of smart and resourceful design thinking. Every decision was carefully weighed against its alternative. A game of clinical precision, contrasting heavily with the warm and customized nature of the result.
The space we inherited had a lot of great features. The walls were properly insulated, the hardwood floors were, in fact, hardwood, and the kitchen had working appliances. Other than the joinery, most elements seemed like a keep. But it felt, for lack of a better word, sad. The white paint was too cold, the floor was too dark, and the kitchen looked like it had outlived every single person who had used it.
he brief was simple: give it life. The floors were sanded, repaired, and lightened. The warmer white applied to the walls paired nicely with the brighter floors. The glass balustrade for the staircase was replaced by a hip-high built-in library. Both bathrooms, although not photographed, were completely overhauled. New cupboards in both the master bedroom and guest bedroom bracket their respective pop of color: teal for the built-in desk in the guest bedroom and oak veneer for the drawers and shelves in the master bedroom.
The work done to the kitchen is a great representation of our approach to the project. The layout was already super efficient, and the appliances were in perfect working order. It also faced the dining room as well as a door leading to the terrace - anchoring the entire second floor. But none of this made up for the painful array of vanilla-hued finishes. The floor, cabinets and countertops looked like a selection of cheap mustards.
With our limited budget it would have been too costly to replace the kitchen entirely - and the end product would have only been marginally better. The finishes were our playground, but not without constraints. The cabinet doors were lacquered, limiting our options for new colors on those surfaces. However, the handles were easily replaceable. To contrast the relatively desaturated color of the cabinetry, we opted for vivid red plastic handles with a rounded profile. Their color, shape and profile was inspired by HEWI’s designs from the 1980s, bringing in some much needed frolicsomeness.
The half-circles on the floor tiles alternate between clay and beige, weaving together the timber floor boards leading to the kitchen and the cream cabinet doors enclosing it. Those same tiles were used as skirting where possible.
The countertop is a dark-green marble cement agglomerate. It uses recomposed stone and resembles terrazzo. The contrast in color creates a balance that was sorely lacking from the existing monochrome kitchen.
