Baguio Villa

The original plan had more rooms but smaller ones, the kind of layout that suits a young family, and it left corridors that wasted space. With the grown children no longer at home, we reset the flat: the tightly partitioned three bedrooms became one bedroom plus a study. That freed enough room to more than double the master bathroom, from 32 to 76 square feet, and the extra space let us turn the bathtub to face the windows and the view over Telegraph Bay.

The old kitchen had been tucked into a corner, closed off and built only for getting meals done, which no longer suited a couple on their own. We moved it into the middle of the living space and opened it up, so cooking became something to enjoy and to share with friends rather than a chore in a stuffy room.

Baguio Villa was built thirty-five years ago and many of the finishes were showing it, so this interior design leans forward in time. We made bold use of glass and steel, with geometric touches like the exposed circular speakers on the master bedroom wall and a collage of recessed rectangular shelves on the living room wall. Sliding doors and a near-total absence of handles, except on the front door and the shower, give the flat a clean efficiency, and the rounded forms of the Jacobsen Egg chair and the Eames DSR dining chairs echo the circular light fittings to leave the living area feeling almost futuristic.