Global Inspiration: Red Apple Apartments

This striking project shows true originality in its form and use of materials.

Architects, Aedes Studio, write:

“The plot is an intersection of residential and public areas. It is a “residential factory” turned into lofts keep the dualistic character and contains many opposites.

We traced the contrasts between big and small, open and closed, public and private, penetrable and solid. We dissolved the boundaries between the building and its surrounding through intermediate zones where they intermingle. The elements sticking out cast shadows in summer and prevent from overheating. They form fields of force most visible in the wet effect of the protruding bricks on the cantilevers.

In the larger city context people have two contradicting needs. First is the desire for maximum individualizing one’s own home in contrast to the unified typified socialistic blocks. On the other hand is the urgent necessity for a more homogeneous urban fabric, which is really broken also as a result of the first.

We tried to reconcile both contradictions. The building has a standing out individuality and all of its 61 apartments are different. Through its dissolving boundaries, the building is in a close contact with its surroundings. It is an entire organism embedded in the neighborhood.”

The building was finished in 2013 and is located in Sofia, Bulgaria.