Parasite Habitat

Architects: Cherry Art Hub

Area: 39 m²

Year: 2023

Location: Novi Sad, Serbia

The apartment is designed for two people as a unique space with an embedded bedroom – this method is unique and consists of forming a new text inside the phrase we are used to.

PHOTOGRAPHY Relja Ivanić

The bedroom plays the role of a parasite, while everything else inside the apartment is positioned in relation to the intruder. The tame pest, at the same time unclothed and surrounded, becomes an accomplice, changing its identity, but not its function. It plays with the structure inside which it is placed. It is emphasized, yet it does not stand out.

The game of contrast of expressions enriches the meaning of housing. It leads to a better understanding between the complexity of functions and user's needs. Modeled after Japanese architecture, the functionality of every single square meter is provided for the user. Next to the huge storing space, the dominant living room hasn’t been lost.

PHOTOGRAPHY Relja Ivanić

The furniture that embraces the walls, the only real borders of the apartment, still leaves empty space. Everything has been optimized so the user can, smoothly, without making any compromises, fulfill all their needs by choosing various activities - for example recreational. From everyday stretching exercises to partner exercises, the big room gives enough width for these necessary movements.

PHOTOGRAPHY Relja Ivanić

The extendable dining table, placed inside the cabinet at the ledge of the living room, is mobile and able to host six people at dinner, while the modular sofa provides overnight accommodation for one person. There is a provocation at the expense of perception due to the width of the space and the various ways of staging the living room. The impression of spaciousness, even in this small space, is present as the collimation lines of the adjoining rooms conjoin in every room. It is possible to enter into every nook of the space, which creates more intimacy the deeper we go inside, without losing sight of the rest of the space. The feeling of uniqueness is created – a whole established as mutual permeation of two worlds, outside and inside. The feeling of isolation, belonging to a specific room, has been brought to question. This space represents everything we didn’t know we could experience in a very limited square footage apartment.

PHOTOGRAPHY Relja Ivanić

The simplicity of materials throughout the space is retained through the furniture, floors, and walls, while the internal borders create a studio of colors.

PHOTOGRAPHY Relja Ivanić

What hasn’t been deviated from is the fact that the room must be adjusted to the needs of the user and in no way should this suffer due to aesthetics. Its quality lies in the simplicity of the project design, not in the aesthetic decorations.

Floor plan before the renovation