Architect Turns Small Abandoned Apartment into Bright Character Filled Home Malta 60sqm 645sqft

I was looking for a period home in an urban conservation area. Before I bought the flat it had been vacant for over 20 years. What struck me immediately about the place was the sheer amount of light. I saw the potential for very small interventions to make a really big difference. The flat was mostly empty except for some pieces of furniture left behind by the previous residents, a few of which I decided to keep. The high ceilings and the fact that it's on the top floor meant that I could make a very small flat feel very bright and spacious. My name is Lucia, I'm Maltese and I'm an architect. I'm currently working and studying in Dublin but I'm lucky to have had various friends living in the flat since I've been away. The apartment is located in the fortified city of Cospequa. It's on the little island of Malta in the middle of the Mediterranean. Bournemouth is one of the island's historic three cities across from Valletta, Malta's capital city. Narrow streets lead down to the sea on either side. The building itself is a post-war infill block built around the 1950s and it's always been residential. I loved the block-coloured cement tiles found in buildings of this era. The kitchen had been built inside a very narrow corridor at the back of the flat. This arrangement limited the light that could otherwise reach well into the floor plan of the building. I widened the three doorways that connected the kitchen, living and dining rooms turning them into one large single space. I enlarged the bathroom by moving the toilet and sink out of the little room and converted the original toilet room to a large shower. I widened the entrance to the bedroom and I moved the original double doors between the living and dining room to this room. It's freaky deaky and it's oh so fine. We have it all. How does design stir our feelings and drive our connections to places, to our precious histories and to each other? 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I have a little side table by the front door for dropping my keys and little bits and I can hang a coat or two on the back of the front door. I designed a bespoke kitchen of low oak cabinets and Carrara marble countertops to sit within the original volume of the kitchen. I lowered the windowsill right down to the countertop so that the marble can extend right towards the frames. The result is that your eyes are really drawn out towards the view of the city. For the walls I simply whitewashed them to express the natural more three-dimensional surface of the stone. The kitchen is compact but it still feels very comfortable. The induction hob, oven, dishwasher and sink are all built into the lower kitchen cabinets and are within reach of each other. The high steel shelving between the kitchen and living room is really about giving the kitchen a bit more of a sense of enclosure without actually closing it off and at the same time it draws your eye upwards really accentuating the height of the space. I also integrated some open shelving on the other side of this cabinet in a space that would have otherwise been inaccessible from the kitchen. The marble countertop was extended to include an overhang so that it provides a nice breakfast bar or additional working space. The kitchen extends into a dining area with bespoke full-height cupboards that provides very generous storage space. There's a built-in fridge and freezer, a pantry and a washer dryer. Towels, linens, cleaning supplies, even a ladder are all hidden behind the tall minimal doors of this unit. Another key move which was a real headache but I'm so pleased I did it was shifting the tile border into the space. Having that border visible makes it feel like the cupboards aren't encroaching in that space. I struggled to find a small enough table for a while until a new neighbour entered the building. She had had a skip organised and was getting rid of everything in her flat. I walked down the stairs past her flat and I saw these chrome legs through the door. She was really happy to oblige and I was so pleased to have saved another item of furniture from the same building. The alterations in this section of the flat have really transformed the space into a comfortable living area that now has access to the large windows that overlook Bournemouth's urban setting. The glass cabinet was in the same place the first time I walked into the flat. It has obviously been given a good clean before I filled it with books, vases and picture frames. The mid-century coffee table was a gift from a friend and it really ties in well with the glass cabinet. I specifically chose to invest in a sofa bed to be able to have guests over. I also installed a minimal suspended track light above the sofa. The suspended track also allowed me to bypass the exposed steel beams that run in the perpendicular direction. Where walls were removed I used reclaimed white cement tiles from another property of a similar age. The colour of the cement tiles obviously varies but I do like that they leave a trace of the original position of the walls. The two windows in the living room and kitchen were originally about 1.2 metres off the ground so I lowered the windowsills right down to really emphasise the view from the sitting area. The proportions of the window and the aluminium frames here mimic that of a typical Maltese balcony making the space feel almost like an outdoor terrace. Both the bathroom and overhead storage are concealed behind a large bespoke oak veneered door that ties in with the low kitchen cabinets across the corridor. The large storage space is ideal for suitcases and off-season clothing. The door is designed to feel like another piece of fitted furniture with concealed hinges and a single continuous finger-pull groove. A toilet was originally positioned inside what is now the shower. I brought the toilet and sink out and expanded the size of the bathroom as far as I could. The back wall of the bathroom is built out to conceal the plumbing and mixes of the toilet, sink and shower. There's a lovely little window in the shower with a view of Formla's urban rooftops. I used the white tiles to unify the two rooms and really put emphasis in the blue ceiling. A bespoke fitted mirror cabinet was added flush with this wall and it forms a shallow shelf below. In the corridor there was so much congestion of electric conduit that I decided to install a soffit. But here I introduced a shadow gap along either side to demarcate the new material. The bedroom is at the end of the corridor. I widened the door opening to fit the wooden double doors that were originally positioned between the living and dining room. I thought the proportions of this space were lovely so I didn't need to do very much here. Sleeping in this room feels as if I'm in some luxurious old palace. I also kept the original furniture because I thought it had so much character. The balcony was half blocked off because there was no floor slab. I was also so pleased to find the balcony railing that had been kept inside the flat. I reconstructed the floor slab and reinstated the original railing. It's also an ideal spot to sit and drink coffee in the morning. The low evening sun shines through the balcony doors deep into the bedroom. Working as an architect in Malta, at least in my experience, your interventions inevitably enter into dialogue with rich architectural and cultural heritage and we are extremely lucky in this regard. In my case, converting a smaller space in such a historic part of the Grand Harbour offered me the opportunity to live in a beautiful and extremely historically rich urban setting and enjoy higher ceilings, brighter living spaces while still being so close to the sea. Thanks for watching. If you're an architect or designer with a project we could feature please share it with us at nevertosmall.com submissions