W. Jakubowski Attic Apartment

The W. Jakubowski attic apartment sits on ul. Kopernika — Copernicus Street — in the heart of Bydgoszcz's historic urban fabric, occupying the top floor and attic level of a late nineteenth-century tenement building whose Prussian construction heritage is most eloquently expressed in the king-post timber roof trusses overhead: aged pine with hand-cut mortise-and-tenon joinery, patinated by over a century of habitation. The apartment, spanning 65 to 72 square metres across two interconnected levels, was received in its original unrenovated condition — functional but accumulated over decades without coherent design intention. A 1960s cream enamel kitchen dresser, pink-painted bathroom walls, two inadequate bathrooms divided between floors, and a kitchen confined to a dark slope-constrained room on the lower level defined the existing state. The brief was a complete transformation: not cosmetic improvement but a fundamental spatial reorganisation that would make the apartment work as a contemporary home.

The design process opened in July 2022 with five distinct style directions presented to the client — from Warm Industrial with cognac leather and dark joinery, through Dark Rustic and Scandinavian Nordic variants, to two attic-specific approaches: a Dark Attic/Loft concept that embraced the exposed timber structure with purpose-built storage under the slopes, and a Bright Nordic Attic option that celebrated the beams in white. The chosen direction synthesised elements from the Warm Industrial and Dark Attic concepts, arriving at a palette of dark navy kitchen splashback, warm beige floor tiles throughout wet areas, and grey large-format bathroom wall tiles — a moody, contemporary interior that trades heritage character for spatial coherence. The most consequential aspect of this choice: the beautiful aged king-post trusses, which several moodboard directions had proposed celebrating, are concealed behind new plasterboard walls and custom joinery. The decision trades the apartment's most distinctive structural feature for maximum usable wall surface and storage volume — a pragmatic calculation for a home where every centimetre under standing height must be made to work.

The spatial reorganisation is total. The central masonry chimney breast with its wood-burning stove — the defining element that previously divided the attic living area into two bays — is removed, creating a single continuous open-plan space under the dramatic roof pitch, with ceiling heights reaching 3.19 metres at the living room ridge and 3.66 metres at the ridge apex. The kitchen migrates from the lower level to the upper floor, where it becomes semi-open to the living area with ceiling height sufficient for full-height cabinetry at 3.16 metres. The two existing bathrooms are consolidated into one properly specified wet room with separate shower enclosure, bathtub positioned under a skylight window, vanity, and a dedicated vestibule clad in black tiles as a dramatic threshold — the only element from the existing condition preserved is the bathtub's relationship to natural light from above. A new plumbing infrastructure supports the kitchen relocation, running water supply and drainage through the floor structure to serve the upper-level cooking zone. The lower level retains the entrance hall and internal staircase — thirteen risers at 16 centimetre rise — with storage built into the under-stair and beside-stair zones.

Nine bespoke joinery pieces — coded M1 through M9 — form the design's primary architectural strategy for inhabiting the attic geometry. With collar heights dropping to 59 centimetres at the eaves, roughly a third of the floor area falls below standing height. Rather than surrendering these zones to inaccessible voids, 23 or more linear metres of custom-built storage claim every low section: the 416-centimetre living room media wall runs the full width of the sloped zone with open shelving, closed storage, and a television niche that follows the slope profile; the 293-centimetre kitchen run integrates appliances and a fridge along the most practical counter length; bedroom wardrobes follow the sloped walls at both ends of the upper level. The density of bespoke joinery for an apartment of this size is exceptional — an expression of the design's commitment to making the attic constraint entirely liveable rather than partially managed.

The floor finishes plan at 1:50 distributes large-format beige porcelain tiles through the wet areas — bathroom, vestibule, and kitchen zone — with oak floating floor through the living and bedroom spaces. Bathroom wall elevations at 1:25 specify grey 30x90 centimetre wall tiles on all four bathroom surfaces, with shower niche dimensions and vanity placement separately detailed. A dark navy splashback in the kitchen provides the single chromatic accent within an otherwise neutral palette: the sole deliberate gesture of colour in a design that otherwise resolves itself through material texture and tonal variation rather than chromatic statement. Eight cross-sections document the spatial logic of the attic in complete technical detail — the only way to resolve a geometry where the section changes continuously from eave to ridge and every built element must negotiate the slope.