Set within Point West overlooking Cromwell Road in South Kensington - the grand West London boulevard connecting the city with cultural landmarks including the V&A, Natural History Museum and Royal Albert Hall – interior architecture studio Office for Contemporary Design has transformed a triplex penthouse into a deeply atmospheric home shaped by light, reflection and materiality. Spanning the uppermost floors of the landmark residential building, the 230 sqm apartment unfolds almost cinematically above London, where panoramic skyline views and the changing quality of daylight informed every aspect of the redesign.
Originally conceived in the late 1980s as part of the wider Point West development built on the former West London Air Terminal site, the apartment occupied a unique elevated position within South Kensington, yet internally felt dark, fragmented and disconnected from both the city beyond and the quality of light entering the interiors. Led by founder Jan Janecek, Office for Contemporary Design approached the project not simply as a luxury refurbishment, but as an opportunity to create a sanctuary suspended above the metropolis; a home where architecture, interiors and atmosphere dissolve into one another through softness, tactility and carefully controlled illumination.
Described by the studio as being ‘furnished by light’, the project became an exploration of how daylight, reflection and materiality could shape the emotional experience of the apartment. OfCD approached the interiors with an emphasis on atmosphere, proportion and wellbeing, where softened light, tactile natural materials and carefully balanced tones work together to create a home defined by calmness, comfort and an approachable sense of place.
The practice began by stripping back the penthouse entirely to its structural shell before being comprehensively rebuilt and reconfigured across its three floors. The original staircase was removed, floor constructions replaced and all mechanical and electrical systems redesigned to support a calmer and more fluid way of living. Given the relatively compact footprint of each floor, the challenge lay less in maximising square footage and more in creating an interior that felt expansive, open and tranquil without becoming austere.
At the centre of the apartment sits a bespoke double-helix staircase that rises sculpturally through all three floors of the home. Formed from a brushed stainless-steel structure with softly curved timber treads and integrated diffused lighting concealed beneath each step, the stair was designed specifically to soften the movement of light between floors. Designed with open risers and wrapped in curved structural glazing, the staircase allows light and sightlines to travel fluidly between each level of the apartment, while reinforcing the project’s recurring language of transparency, reflection and softened form. Its looping geometry allows daylight to travel delicately through the apartment, filtering softly across surfaces throughout the day while creating shifting moments of transparency, shadow and reflection depending on where it is viewed from.
Arrival into the penthouse on the 10th floor immediately establishes the apartment’s tonal restraint. Bespoke walnut panelling wraps the entrance hall alongside integrated cloak storage and bronze mirrored surfaces that catch and soften the light entering from the living spaces beyond. A large sliding door, walnut veneered on the arrival side and finished in Slate I on the living room side, allows the entrance sequence to be separated from the main entertaining space when needed, while maintaining the visual quietness of the wider scheme. Overhead, recessed trough lighting by PHOS disappears almost entirely into ceilings painted in Paint & Paper Library’s Slate I, allowing illumination to feel atmospheric rather than decorative.
Across the space, the apartment opens into a fluid sequence of kitchen, dining and living spaces arranged around the staircase core before extending out towards the skyline beyond. Full-height glazing and large sliding doors open directly onto a private terrace, where B&B Italia outdoor furniture extend the apartment’s material palette outside. Throughout this level, bespoke Italian herringbone filled and honed travertine flooring runs continuously beneath integrated underfloor, wall and ceiling heating and cooling systems, creating warmth and continuity underfoot while reinforcing the apartment’s fluidity between spaces. The wider material palette remains deliberately restrained and tonal, combining dark walnut veneer, honed stone, bronze mirrored surfaces and brushed metal detailing in carefully balanced proportions. Rather than relying on contrast, Office for Contemporary Design uses subtle shifts in texture, reflectivity and tone to create depth and atmosphere throughout the apartment. The palette acts almost as a counterbalance to the intensity of the city below, softening the apartment’s elevated urban setting through warmth, tactility and tonal depth.
Within the kitchen, Office for Contemporary Design designed an entirely bespoke walnut veneered scheme centred around a sculptural island clad in Compac Unique Arabescato in a matt finish. The same material is used for the worktops and niche, including the floating shelf and rear kitchen run, creating a quiet continuity across the preparation and display areas. The varying edge details across the island and kitchen run subtly distinguish each volume architecturally, while the island’s softened curved corners echo the looping geometry of the staircase nearby. Integrated Miele appliances, including a downdraft hob, maintain the visual calm of the space. Vintage modern classic bar stools create an informal place to sit at the island, allowing the kitchen to operate as both a working space and a casual point of gathering within the wider entertaining floor. When open, the concealed cocktail bar introduces a more glistening and unexpected moment within the otherwise pared-back kitchen, with mirrored surfaces and glassware catching the light to shift the space from daytime calm into something more polished by evening. Even the apartment’s practical interventions were approached architecturally. A Quooker All-in-One tap providing boiling, filtered and sparkling water was selected specifically to reduce visual clutter across surfaces, while concealed storage and integrated joinery allow everyday objects to disappear entirely into the architecture.
Adjacent to the kitchen, the dining space sits beneath an Astep Model 2065 pendant light, where a Porada Infinity dining table with walnut base is paired with sculptural Cattelan Italia dining chairs. Positioned beneath a recessed ceiling detail that subtly lowers the scale of the space, the dining area feels intimate despite the openness of the wider floorplate and expansive glazing beyond. Framed by panoramic views overlooking London, the room shifts dramatically throughout the day as natural light moves across the flooring and softly textured finishes. In the evening, Lutron-controlled lighting scenes gradually transform the apartment from bright daylight into something softer and more intimate by night.
The living area continues the apartment’s softer architectural language through curved forms and tactile finishes. A Flexform Soft Dream modular sofa with leather base and aluminium feet anchors the room opposite bespoke travertine fireplace joinery housing a Planika bio-ethanol fire. Nearby, a Baxter Fany coffee table combining leather, smoked mirrored surfaces and travertine introduces subtle reflection into the scheme, while Porada Louis armchairs and a Flos Arco floor lamp further reinforce the apartment’s sculptural language. The client’s Cotton Candy artwork by GizNYC punctuates the otherwise tonal palette, introducing a vivid note of colour that feels deliberately framed by the surrounding stone, walnut and softly filtered light. Full-height translucent blinds diffuse daylight throughout the apartment, softening views across the city and washing the interiors in an almost filmic glow. Rather than allowing the skyline to dominate visually, Office for Contemporary Design carefully filters the relationship between interior and exterior, creating a gentler and more contemplative atmosphere despite the apartment’s dramatic elevation above London.
Elsewhere on the entertaining floor, the cloakroom introduces a slightly darker and more intimate mood. Large-format Grigio Billemi marble wraps both the flooring and lower walls in a gloss finish, contrasted against matte walnut panelling above datum height. A bespoke stone basin designed by Office for Contemporary Design is also formed in Grigio Billemi marble and lined in Caesarstone Mink for longevity, sitting beneath softly glowing Artemide Dioscuri wall lights. THG Dean tapware in matt nickel introduces cooler metallic tones against the richness of the stone surfaces, while the continuation of the Slate I ceiling from Paint & Paper Library ties the smaller room back to the rest of the apartment.
On the first floor, the atmosphere becomes quieter still. Organised in a horseshoe arrangement around the staircase, the principal suite comprises the bedroom, walk-in dressing room and en-suite wellness space, all oriented carefully towards the panoramic skyline beyond. Here, the material palette shifts from the filled and honed travertine of the entertaining floor to a bespoke chevron walnut flooring, deepening the tone of the apartment and creating a warmer, more private register underfoot. The change in flooring subtly marks the transition from the social spaces below to the more intimate rhythm of the bedroom floor, while maintaining the same emphasis on tactility, continuity and calm.
The principal bedroom remains deliberately restrained in palette and furnishing, allowing materiality and light to define the mood of the space. Paint & Paper Library’s Slate I continues across walls and ceiling, creating a soft canvas-like backdrop for the room’s quieter material contrasts. The room also features a sound-insulated internal panoramic window positioned above the small double-height space, maintaining the bedroom’s sense of openness while framing uninterrupted views across London. Full-height sheer curtains diffuse the daylight entering through the glazing, while blackout rollers provide privacy and darkness when needed. Throughout the floor, concealed joinery and flush architectural detailing preserve the sense of visual stillness established downstairs.
The bedroom itself is furnished with an Ivano Redaelli You and Me bed with canopy, its minimal four- poster frame giving the room a quietly architectural focal point without adding visual weight. Beside it, bespoke filled and honed travertine bedside tables with soft-closing drawers sit beneath black Oluce Coupé lamps, continuing the apartment’s dialogue between stone, shadow and softly directed light. A Flexform A.B.C. leather armchair and ottoman create a low, relaxed seating moment by the glazing, while a traditional alpine Austrian hand carved wardrobe, an heirloom belonging to the client, introduces a more personal and timeworn note within the otherwise highly resolved interior.
The walk-in dressing room continues the suite’s subtle interplay between concealment, reflection and material depth. OfCD-designed wardrobes are finished in matt Slate I spray paint, while the dressing joinery combines travertine-fronted drawers with a stone-lined niche fitted with directional Nano Spots by PHOS. Bifolding antique mirrored cabinet doors introduce a softly reflective surface that catches the light without becoming overly polished, giving the dressing area a quieter and more atmospheric presence than conventional mirrored joinery.
At the edge of the staircase void, Office for Contemporary Design created a bespoke curved window seat upholstered in Dedar’s Karakorum fabric, set within a niche lined in honed and filled travertine. A bespoke curved sliding door track and curved spray-painted timber shutters allow this area to be opened or closed depending on how much light and connection the client wants between the principal suite and the staircase below. The intervention gives the bedroom floor a rare degree of flexibility, allowing the staircase to become either a source of borrowed light or a more private architectural backdrop.
Within the en-suite bathroom, the project takes on an almost spa-like quality, conceived as a private wellness space within the principal suite. Rather than being flooded by direct external daylight, the bathroom draws softness from the adjoining staircase landing through a translucent reeded privacy glass feature, allowing borrowed light to enter while maintaining a sense of enclosure and privacy. Large-format Compac Unique Calacatta man-made quartz continues across the floors and walls in a matt finish, creating an immersive, monolithic environment softened by reflected light and brushed metallic detailing. A bespoke double vanity, also formed in Calacatta quartz, sits beneath mirrored cabinetry, while Dornbracht Tara tapware in Brushed Platinum sharpens the pale stone palette with a cooler metallic note. Hector Finch Zeppelin wall lights bring a softer layer of illumination to the room. A bespoke jacuzzi supplied by London Swimming Pool Company and finished in Bisazza Opus Romano off-white mosaic transforms bathing into a ritual within the home, its stepped, almost pool- like setting reinforcing the bathroom’s wellness-led atmosphere.
A glass wall feature brings further depth to the principal en-suite, with 20mm thick glass shelves inset within Calacatta quartz. Positioned beside translucent reeded privacy glazing towards the staircase landing, the detail allows light to filter into the bathroom while creating a softly illuminated threshold between the wellness space and the circulation beyond. Integrated lighting concealed within recesses and ceiling details allows illumination to feel as though it emanates directly from the architecture rather than from visible fittings, while the pale stone, mosaic, glass and brushed metal maintain the apartment’s carefully controlled tonal palette.
The uppermost floor was designed to support flexibility in how the apartment is lived in day-to-day. To one side sits the client’s daughter’s bedroom with en-suite, while opposite, Office for Contemporary Design created a multi-functional room that simultaneously operates as a shared workspace, television room and occasional guest suite. As on the principal floor below, OfCD bespoke chevron walnut flooring brings a deeper and more intimate material tone to the upper level, distinguishing it from the travertine-lined social floor while maintaining the apartment’s overall sense of continuity.
Within the multi-functional room, two identical workstations are finished in Spray Painted Slate I and paired with Vitra Soft Pad swivel chairs in cognac leather. Each bespoke desk includes an Alma leather inlay, with Juniper Thin task lamps and storage above lit by an integrated LED strip, allowing the allowing the workspace to feel highly considered while remaining visually quiet. Opposite, a concave grooved matt walnut TV niche with inset storage and a Fisher & Paykel drawer fridge creates a more relaxed entertainment setting, its fluted walnut surface adding texture and depth while helping the television disappear back into the architecture. Flexform Fly coffee tables in Carrara marble and timber sit nearby, while the client’s own sofa bed allows the room to shift easily into occasional guest use. A south-facing terrace furnished with MDF Italia pieces connects both rooms externally, extending the apartment further out towards the skyline and reinforcing the continuous relationship between interior and city beyond. Sheer drapes and blackout rollers again allow light, privacy and atmosphere to be carefully adjusted throughout the day.
The upper-floor en-suite shower room continues the project’s emphasis on tactile stone but shifts into a cooler register through honed silver travertine. Bespoke 3D zigzag patterned honed silver travertine feature walls bring subtle relief and shadow to the room, while honed silver travertine main walls and flooring create a cohesive envelope. Zuchetti Helm tapware in stainless steel and a Marset Ambrosia A90 wall sconce in anodised black sharpen the palette, with a bespoke Corian Bone matt basin and colour-matched Bette shower tray completing the space.
Throughout the apartment, Office for Contemporary Design prioritised atmosphere, balance and sensory calm as much as material and form. Every intervention, from concealed lighting details and integrated joinery through to the careful modulation of reflection, texture and tone, was designed to support a heightened sense of calm and wellbeing within the home. Despite its position high above one of London’s busiest cultural corridors, the apartment feels unexpectedly gentle; a space where architecture softens the intensity of the city rather than competing with it.
At Point West, Office for Contemporary Design has created a home that feels suspended between intimacy and openness, between the energy of London and the stillness of retreat. Furnished by light, the apartment unfolds as a sequence of calm and carefully choreographed spaces where atmosphere is shaped through softness, continuity and the quiet confidence of detail.
