What should the home of people whose main passion is travel look like? The hosts, who travel often, especially appreciate coziness and comfort. For them, travel is not a vacation, but rather new impressions and a change of scenery, an opportunity to get out of their comfort zone and return to it. Thus was born the concept of the Zanki project – a box of memories. The interior combines the comfort of a home with the atmosphere of East Asia that attracts residents the most.

We did not set ourselves the task of perfectly recreating traditional housing or filling the interior with authentic decor, but chose the association as the main tool. The studio contains natural materials: natural stone and wood. An important element of the composition are the stairs. The metal fence hides all the details of the construction, and due to the dark color and almost theatrical lighting, it becomes a significant accent, disrupting the vertical rhythm of the room. The picture is completed by a glass partition in front of the stairs, it creates a feeling of isolation and permeability at the same time. The stairs behind it resemble a mirage. Another trick: the combination of top spot lighting, table lamp and lighting on the border of the studio in the kitchen, that creates a picture with a few layers.

The studio flows into the kitchen through the dining area. It creates a colder impression due to the metallic facades of the island, but the logical connection is maintained through the use of wood. Although the work island borders with the dining table, they still form different zones due to the difference in height and lighting: one linear lamp hangs over the work surface, and three separate lamps were chosen for the dining table. Unlike the studio, the atmosphere here creates not artificial light, but panoramic windows, which provide natural light throughout most of the day.

The project about Asia could not do without a silent place to meditate. A soft group is hidden in a small pocket, lowered by a few steps and surrounded on three sides by panoramic windows. It does not feel isolated, but, nevertheless, gives the chance to have a rest, take a deep breath and concentrate on one’s own thoughts.

Two hundred years ago separate bedrooms were in vogue, today we have separate offices. His office is dark and brutal, we are used to describe such interiors with the word “masculine”. This impression is created by gray shades of wood and decorative plaster. With such a background, it was enough to add a soft terracotta chair to bring freshness. The mood is also set by a desktop made of simple geometric shapes as a semantic center of the room, and thick wooden slats with bright lighting the decor on the walls, their pattern is also repeated on the ceiling. In private spaces you could afford direct hints on the Asian theme, here it is a panel with reeds and dishes for the tea ceremony. They do not just play a decorative role, they are personal belongings brought from travel.

Zanki project turned out to be a story about a combination of opposites – not only about home and travel, but also about men and women. The rooms are united by the use of decorative plaster and corrugated panels, but the difference in proportions and color scheme conveys the characters of the owners. White and powder shades were chosen for her office, accents in the form of black facades and dark wood only enhance the feeling of lightness and weightlessness. Although in our century separate workspaces replaced separate bedrooms, it remains personal: the offices can be accessed from the studio, but the doors are hidden behind panels with wooden slats, which primarily looks like decor.

With a small area of the room and the lack of natural light, to prefer light tones seems an obvious and banal decision. However, a solid color does not mean boring one, with proper lighting, white color is the best instrument to reveal the texture of the material. A tile resembling a roof shingles was chosen for the accent wall of the guest bathroom. Directional lighting, hidden in the ceiling, creates expressive shadows, and the mirror opposite visually enlarges the space. The only accent here is a black countertop with a sink, which emphasizes the whole idea

In the master bedroom, the screen above the bed immediately attracts attention, it is made of frames and painted fabric. Its elements create a soft boundary between the passage to the bathroom door and wardrobe by rotating. Room zoning also requires the help of a low bed platform and the difference in floor coverings. The overhead light here has only a technical significance, the ceiling built-in lamps illuminate the doors. Local light divides the seating areas: there is a lamp on both sides of the bed and  two lamps above the armchair

The guest bedroom is always a special room in the project, we wanted to make it neutral, but adhering to the overall plan. Gray and cream shades were chosen for this room, a picture of a willow leaf above the bed and a picture depicting a reed are reminiscent of a trip to Asia. A significant detail here is a wicker banquette. There is a top spot lighting and two asymmetrical lamps by the bed. All the images that fit into the project: road and home, male and female, Europe and Asia,  we did not name directly, but left in the subtext, creating a holistic aesthetic, where the geometry, colors and materials themselves hint at everything we wanted to say.