London studio Feix & Merlin lowered the floors and raised the ceiling inside this former warehouse to transform it from a cramped apartment into a spacious open-plan residence.
The apartment is located within an old grain store on the banks of the River Thames in Rotherhithe, southeast London.

Before their refurbishment, Feix & Merlin ? made up of architects Julia Feix and Tarek Merlin ? described the property as being "cramped and tight".
Their solution to this was to make considerable structural changes, which included lowering the floor by one metre and opening up the ceiling to create a double-height space.

Due to its location next to the river, the excavation was a complex process that involved assessing the risk of flooding ? something the clients had their reservations about. "It felt very cramped and tight before," said the architects. "We knew that in order to successfully improve on the spatial experience of the apartment, we needed to take floor area away, create the double-height space over the kitchen and give the apartment some room to breathe."

"Understandably this initially wasn't an easy decision for the client," they continued. "It felt a little counter-intuitive. But with the excavation and the additional space gained by that it all fell into place."
Once these changes had been made, the architects went on to remodel the entire layout of the apartment.

The lowered floor made room for a new op...