London architecture firm Studio Ben Allen has built a plywood structure inside a flat in London's brutalist Barbican Estate to create a bedroom for two children, featuring archways, steps and a fold-down desk.
The resident of the one-storey flat tasked the local architects to overhaul the bedroom for his two children who come and stay at weekends. As well as providing somewhere for them to sleep, he wanted the studio to include a place for them to complete their homework and play.
Called A Room for Two, the pale birch plywood insertion creates a pair of bedrooms and studies, with all the necessary functions, including storage units and desks, built in. Studio Ben Allen took cues for the design from the workplace portrayed in Antonello da Messina's 15th-century painting St Jerome in His Study, which is a similarly large wooden furniture element.
"Inspired by the painting St Jerome in His Study by Antonello da Messina, our departure point was to create an installation that is as much a small piece of architecture as it is a piece of furniture," said the studio.
Other details are based on the apartment's setting within the Defoe House of the Barbican Estate ? one of the largest examples of the Brutalist style. Arches feature throughout to mimic the barrel-vaulted shape of the some of the terrace apartments in the 1950s housing estate.
"It was important to provide an engaging space for the children that also made reference to the architecture of the Barbican es...