Interior of the apartment in the professorial building the architectural ensemble of the Agricultural Institute

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Various images and facts related to this house immediately began to appear in our minds, for example, that from 1970-1994 the house became a home for the artist Vasily Pavlovich Krivoruchko, whose memorial plaque is located here.

History of the agricultural institute town: from construction to restoration after the Patriotic War

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On the eve of the First World War on the high green hills (opposite the Otrozhskie railroad bridges in Voronezh) the construction of the agricultural institute town was started. The project was designed by Adam Iosifovich Dietrich (1866-1933), director of the St. Petersburg Institute of Civil Engineers. He appointed as his assistant his student V.V.Sokolovsky, who not only built, but after the Great Patriotic War took part in the restoration of the destroyed ensemble of buildings of the Voronezh Agricultural Institute.

On June 23, 1913 the laying of the foundation of the main educational building was ceremonially recorded. During the First World War the construction was suspended and continued after the Revolution of 1917.

The professors' building on Timiryazeva 1 belongs to the first pre-revolutionary phase of construction and its architecture gravitates towards the Baroque style of the Peter the Great period. Such a decision is not accidental, but is connected with the fact that the institute was named after Peter the Great, so the whole complex is designed in this style. Initially the building was painted in blue with white elements of decorative stucco, after repair in the 1950s remained in the same color scheme. Since 1966 it acquired yellow color and now remains in this color.

From the windows of the apartment and from the balcony we have a beautiful view of the park, now, Voronezh State Agrarian University. From the bedroom we see a cozy courtyard.

Personally, I am very inspired by such places. The house can be considered unique in its own way, it survived the Second World War and was home to artists, writers, professors and choreographers. According to the stories of its inhabitants, it was a very close, close-knit and interesting community. Listening to this, I imagined shots from the movie "Pokrovskie Vorota".

Photos by Maxim Shelyakin.

It is remarkable that according to the project the building had 50 apartments with access to the front and "black" staircases. However, time has made its corrections, privatization yet again, and now there are much more apartments, large living cells are divided for different owners.

The first visit of the architects to get acquainted with a landmark house for the city

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During the first visit, our bureau discovered a lot of interesting elements that we wanted to keep and use in the future interior if possible. For example, ventilation grilles in the floor space. It was decided to replace the parquet itself with a completely new one, as it could not stand any criticism. A fragment of a cast-iron staircase fence, in our opinion, could create additional aesthetic value.

There have been long, repeated discussions about the possibility of retaining the existing plaster cornices. The condition of the ceiling (plaster/shingle-wood lagging) was questionable, and we wanted to renew/replace the existing plaster so that the new owners would not have any problems during use. But the cornices would suffer. Therefore, we decided on a compromise option, when the cornices were kept only in part of the rooms.

Ceramic tiles were also preserved in some places and it was very desirable to use them in the bathrooms and kitchen areas. We were very pleased with the carpet, but there was no place for it in the new concept...

Second life: careful restoration of antique furniture pieces

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Some pieces of furniture were sent for restoration to our friends from @zanovo_studio. An armchair with a very utilitarian name Type 300-123, designed in the second half of the 1950s by designer Mieczysław Puchala for the Polish factory Bystrzycka. It can be seen in the brochures «Modern Furniture» of the Warsaw Publishing House of Light and Food Industry in 1966. As upholstery we chose the author's tapestry «Bauhaus, made on the motives of original works by Daria Zinovatnaya @zinovatnaya.

The next hero of the restoration was a product of the «People's Enterprise» of the GDR in the 60-70s — a bar-torscher with mahogany veneer. Masters from @zanovo_studio, with all the attention and responsibility restored wooden elements and part of the metal edge, polished metal parts, draped the lampshade with new fabric, replaced the electrics.

Photos by Ilya Krivtsov.

Functional and roomy master bedrooms

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From the small hallway that follows the entryway, we can access the living room and both bedrooms. In the master bedroom, we redrew the layout indecently many times until we were happy with it and showed it to the client. This room was one of the most challenging, as the maximum allowable comfortable dimensions of the entire filling required a very careful adjustment of not only functional elements, but also the engineering component.

The result was really unusual. Behind the "green" wall with shelves and drawers for all sorts of small things and appliances there is a solid closet. Taking into account its height, it was necessary to provide access to the upper tier. We realized it with the help of a system of rails and a ladder with quite technological fittings. The entire ergonomics was adapted to the tallest member of the family.

The restroom and shower room were separated for ease of sharing, and yes it could hardly be done any other way. The exhaust from both rooms utilized not only the mezzanine space, but also the walls, so as not to create unnecessary boxes. All ergonomics were worked out down to the last one hook, based on the clients' usual usage scenarios.

Children's room interior design: a space for playing and learning

Opposite is already the children's bedroom. The center of the whole space was a bed-antresol with a rather tricky fixing scheme, with a convenient storage system made at the expense of the ceiling space of the adjacent bathroom.

A large closet is designed to accommodate the entire closet of the little hostess. Plants in cachepots are placed on it, as well as on the functional combined shelving unit to the left of the window.

The vintage desk invites you to learn new knowledge and enjoy the tactile pleasure of the oak veneer table top. The sofa bed is always ready to welcome friends to discuss the last one news or play board games on the cozy oak coffee table with wicker rattan shelf.

In addition to drapes with stretch curtains in the color of the walls, slatted shutters with cremons protect from sunlight and add coziness. The last ones were found in St. Petersburg and restored. A restored cabinet is placed between the sofa and the doors.

Completing the color scheme and composition, above the sofa we placed a beautiful painting from our friend @arin.ehc. Her work is filled with light and childlike directness. At the same time, the technique is quite mature and intertwines the use of different materials.

Flooring with engineering board: a combination of ancient and modern trends

By the way, the engineering board in the whole apartment, except for the wet areas, is laid in French herringbone with a frieze around the entire perimeter. The finishing layer is natural oak under a thick layer of matte lacquer.

Preserving the natural color of the wood, the lacquer adds a subtle honey tint and gives a pleasant feeling to your feet. Using slippers or socks, in our case, is considered a crime.

A mid-twentieth century modernist bathroom with hypoallergenic floor and wall coverings

Through a small corridor from the nursery you can access the bathroom. Considering its size, the height was unnecessary, so we utilized the space behind the ceiling for storage, which can be used both from the corridor and from the nursery.

We also integrated a niche with shelves into the wall so that there was no shortage of surfaces for all the little things we needed.

On the floor and walls in the shower room we used rubber flooring from Nora. It is a very durable and practical material, pleasant to the touch, hypoallergenic and also has very pleasant aesthetic characteristics.

By dividing the room into two color zones, we wanted to add different visual sensations for the young hostess in different usage scenarios. The vintage Simas toilet with a natural walnut cistern and seat further immerses us in mid-20th century modernism.

Enveloping warm bathroom lighting

We purposely did not use intense flood light to create a cozy enveloping atmosphere with the possibility to slightly change the direction and intensity of the light sources.

The brass fittings look most representative in this light. Several sconces are responsible for the functional light at the mirror.

The gas column is hidden behind furniture fronts, which we use quite actively in this project. The invisible door does not seem to be very characteristic of this style, but, in our opinion, it is quite universal.

In our case, we used it to avoid overloading the space with details and kept the emphasis on the beautiful arched framing of the main doorways.

Kitchen-dining-living room space: Provence elements, wine cabinets and a transformer table for meetings with friends

The center of attraction for the whole family and the logical conclusion of the project was a multifunctional space kitchen-dining room-living room. In continuation of the compositional axis of the corridor, we are greeted by the warm light of the bio-fireplace, which is located in the corner for negotiations with a glass of your favorite drink.

To the left of the entrance there is a functional kitchen on two levels and a kitchen island, in the lower part of which wine cabinets are built in. An unusual mezzanine was created in the process of working on the island. It made it possible to green up the room even more and to place several indispensable functional attributes of the kitchen.

The kitchen set is made with Provence elements. The refrigerator was intentionally not built in. In our opinion, in addition to greater practicality, in this interior should not be deliberately "fashionable" elements. An element of organized disorder should be preserved, which gives the feeling of a residential, cozy interior.

The table-transformer without problems allows you to accommodate a company of 8-10 people and this is without taking into account the bar. We can conclude that you can easily host a rather large party for friends here.

A soft living room area with TV and a large leather sofa for maximum comfort

A living room area with TV-picture, balcony access and music corner is separated into a special seating area. A large, leather modular sofa with a walnut coffee table stands out like a native.

We decided to illuminate the digital piano with custom light fixtures with diffusers made of bronze-copper HiHat from Zildjian.

The clothespin lights can be arranged in a convenient way on open shelving, for a specific situation. To the left of the piano appeared the keeper of guitars, vinyl, plug-in primos and other joys. Under the TV, the cabinet collects all the necessary multimedia devices so that you don't miss an interesting HBO movie or enjoy Akhnaten by Philip Glass without unnecessary visual accompaniment.

Styling the walls as an antique as a reminder to its inhabitants of the building's long history

Since the front of the living room faces the street, we did not forget about a compact supply ventilation system with filtration function. On the walls we tried to create the effect of old, multi-layered paint, which preserves the stories of this apartment and fills it with its own, special spirit of place.

At the same time, in order to connect the elements of furniture, kitchen set, axes of lamps, visually lighten the upper volumes of air, we horizontally divided the wall planes into two shades. The windows, as in the other rooms, are decorated with slatted shutters with cremons.

Working with clients turned out to be very intensive, but it was also very rich and energizing with new ideas, the joy of finding a new old fragment of a tile from the middle of the last century or a brass handle from a shutter.

This is one of those projects that make you love the work you do even more, and the final result promises even more satisfaction and bright, vivid memories.