Ukrainian Wabi Sabi. 5.0
Another story about imperfect beauty
Task
To design a separate apartment for a young couple in a big family nest. To settle here emptiness and comfort, nature and technologies, passion and zen. Only wabi-sabi can do that.
Realization
We will start with not a classic description of the interior, but with things that make people live wabi-sabi. To live wabi-sabi means to live a simple, conscious life, in harmony with oneself, with all other harmonies coming in gradually. By the way, not a single Japanese can accurately explain the essence of this concept — it’s in their blood. Another version — they wouldn’t want to as every family has its own understanding, which is kept in secret far from the other families.
Planning is as simple as possible. A living room with a hidden kitchen, a bedroom with a hidden wardrobe, and a bathroom behind the glass. And two “hidden” words in a previous sentence were used on purpose. If you are about wabi-sabi, you need to forget about all the shelves with dozens of statuettes, even if one of them is a gift from your granny or your first love. Only closed storage areas. And if you really like that granny’s ceramic cat — it should be honored to be placed in the center of the room, not among dozens of statuettes alike. Because wabi-sabi is about the things that really matter to you.
Living room
The walls are in clay, the ceiling is in clay and wood, one of the four walls is a window. Japanese wabi-sabi way of life is a peaceful joy to accept the full life circle. From birth to death, from the point of greatest glory to complete decline. Therefore, the main décor element here is a 6-meter window with a view of the landscape that no matter what will come into the world and die. Again, and again.
The main composite element here is an ample sofa and a dining table. The blue-steel legged table is a wart slab, whose bruises are healed with a polymer resin. Above the table, there are designer ceramic storm clouds Khmara by Serhii Makhno, when the rain has not yet begun and has not passed.
Ashwood on the floor is warmed with the granny’s carpets — this family has preserved both spiritual traditions, and material.
Ceramic vase designed by Serhii Makhno and Slavko Odarchenko was inspired by the work of a famous Japanese artist Shiro Tsujimura. Tinted oak on the wall — yes, this is where our hidden kitchen is. And the coffee tables are old willow stumps.
Bedroom
When you accept things as they are and do not try to improve them, there is more time left to just enjoy these things. Imperfection is not something to be endured. It is an integral part of life we must learn to accept and celebrate.
A soft bed in the arms of designer lamps by Makhno, behind which is the same tinted oak that hides the wardrobe. All that is enough.
Bathroom
A glass wall, on the contrary, doesn’t hide the bathroom but gives it some air. It gives it a chance to be a full-fledged part of the space, not a soggy corner without windows. Here, there’s also clay on the walls — the whole space is like a canvas for the most talented artist — life.
