N. Wyskiel Nordic

Nathalie Wyskiel commissioned this apartment as her own personal residence within one of Bydgoszcz's tallest skyscrapers — a contemporary high-rise in the Srodmiescie downtown district, its facade clad in terracotta and copper-toned panels with glass balustrades, positioned at the urban centre of the city. The apartment sits on an upper floor with floor-to-ceiling black aluminium windows providing sweeping panoramic views across Bydgoszcz: church spires, rooftops, residential towers, and green areas visible in every external direction. This view was the site's primary asset, and everything in the design was organised to maximise connection to it. The commission was concurrent with a second investment apartment for the same client in the same building — a concentrated moment of design output in 2020 and 2021 that generated two fully resolved interiors in parallel.

The fundamental design brief was to transform a layout that did not meet the client's needs into a more functional and spatially open apartment. Site photography from September 2020 revealed the existing condition: a standard divided plan with adequate base quality — existing wood-look flooring, basic bathroom tiling, the panoramic windows already in place — but an organisation that fragmented the living area and provided limited storage. The existing bathroom showed signs of water damage. The hallway was divided by multiple doors with no coherent storage system. The apartment's potential was entirely unrealised.

The primary architectural move was the removal of partition walls to create a flowing open-plan living, dining, kitchen, and workspace zone of 49 square metres — a single volume that could harness the full extent of the panoramic glazing from every position within it. Full-height pocket sliding doors reaching nearly to ceiling height, at 245 centimetres, replaced solid partitions throughout, maintaining spatial definition while allowing light to move through the apartment and emphasising the generous 275 centimetre room height. Black steel-framed glass walls replaced solid partitions at the hallway threshold, maintaining visual connection while providing acoustic separation. Eight custom millwork items — kitchen cabinetry wall system, living room bookshelf wall, walk-in closet with glass-fronted wardrobe, hallway wardrobe, bathroom cabinetry, and a low plant shelf by the bedroom window — ensured that storage was architecturally integrated rather than added as afterthought.

The design name "NORDIC" reflects the project's design philosophy: a warm Scandinavian modern aesthetic characterised by natural materials, clean lines, and a restrained but rich material palette in which soft, muted wall colours serve as background against which high-quality natural timber and stone perform. This philosophy was developed through three distinct variants, each fully resolved, that progressively clarified the client's direction.

The design reached its resolved state through three distinct iterations that progressively clarified the client's design direction. Variant 1 (V1) presented a warm eclectic Mid-Century character — Eames Lounge Chair in cream leather with walnut shell, cognac leather sofa, Calacatta marble bathroom walls with bold grey veining, double vanity, smoke glass pendant lighting. Variant 2 (V2) shifted to a moodier register: emerald green velvet upholstered bed, dark walnut headboard wall, deep forest green feature walls, a large terracotta painted circle as a signature accent element, and a walk-in closet behind Crittall-style black steel-framed glass doors. Both variants were fully resolved — each a complete apartment in its own right.

The final Variant 3 (V3) achieves a pure warm Nordic minimalism in which natural oak becomes the primary material: full-height built-in oak cabinetry systems in the kitchen, oak wall cladding panels in the living room, custom oak bookshelf wall integrating a niche for the client's existing upright piano. Steel-glass industrial partition doors throughout introduce an industrial refinement that offsets the warmth of the timber. The spatial plan is structured around the 49 square metre open-plan kitchen-living-dining zone, with the bedroom and walk-in closet behind the glass partition, and the bathroom as the apartment's most intense interior room.

The V3 bathroom is the apartment's most immersive moment. Full-height dark volcanic stone texture tiles line every wall, creating a cave-like enclosure of great material intensity. Against this darkness, a black freestanding bathtub in graphite floats without visual weight. A floating white vanity unit with a matte black square basin provides the chromatic counterpoint. The drama of this room is entirely achieved through material contrast — no spatial tricks are required. The contrast between the dark stone bathroom and the warm oak living spaces constitutes the design's most deliberate move: two distinct atmospheric zones within the apartment, each defined entirely by material rather than spatial configuration.

The apartment sits high in the building, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering panoramic views across the Bydgoszcz cityscape — church spires, rooftops, and the urban horizon visible in every external frame. The V3 design intensifies this connection: low black shelving below the windows carries indoor plants, keeping the sightlines open from every seated position, while the city becomes continuous wallpaper for the living zone.