Many apartment owners face the same choice. Walls give each activity its own room, but they cut the light and make a small home feel smaller. An open plan feels generous, but soon the sofa, the dining table and the children's toys all share one view.
There is a middle way: keep the space open, and divide it with things that are lighter than walls.
A 68 m² family apartment with almost no walls
Dezeen recently featured an apartment on Manhattan's Lower East Side renovated by SABO Project for a family of three. At 68 square metres, it is close to the size of many two-bedroom apartments here.
The designers opened up the plan and rounded the corners of the walls and partitions that remained. In their words, the aim was to "soften divisions between spaces so the apartment is experienced as a central living room extending into surrounding alcoves".
What makes it work is not one big idea but several small ones:
- A rug and a ceiling that agree. A round rug marks the centre of the living area, and a white circle painted on the ceiling above it mirrors the shape. Without a single wall, the zone is clear.
- A bench that connects rooms. A long bench made of stacked concrete blocks runs from the living room to a small sunroom, so two spaces read as one.
- Glass where a wall would be. The sunroom is reached through sliding glass doors and can be seen from the kitchen through a fixed glass panel. The family keeps the light and the view.
- Fabric instead of doors. Custom curtains and shades soften the hard materials and can close a space when needed.
- One palette everywhere. The same green appears on the beams, the lower kitchen cabinets, the curtains and the bedding, which holds the home together.
Six ways to divide space without walls
You do not need exposed concrete or a New York budget to use the same ideas.
- Rugs. A rug is the simplest way to say "this is the living area". Choose one large enough for the front legs of the sofa and chairs to sit on it.
- Lighting. A pendant over the dining table and a floor lamp beside the sofa create two zones in the evening, even in one room.
- Open shelving. A shelf open on both sides separates the entrance from the living room or the bed from a work corner, while letting light through. Keep the lower part closed for storage and the upper part open.
- Curtains. A ceiling track with a light curtain can close a sleeping or work area at night and disappear by day. It is one of the cheapest changes with the biggest effect.
- Glass or slatted partitions. Where you need sound or smell control, such as an open kitchen, a sliding glass panel or a timber slat screen keeps the view while drawing a line.
- Changes of floor or ceiling. A different floor finish, a low platform or a dropped ceiling over one area tells people where one zone ends and another begins.
Keep it calm
Soft dividers work best when the home still reads as one space. A few rules help:
- Use one or two main colours and repeat them across zones, as SABO Project does with green.
- Keep dividers below eye level or see-through wherever possible.
- Plan sockets and lighting before the dividers, so each zone has its own light switch.
- Do not use every method at once. Two or three, chosen well, are usually enough.
Before you start
Write down what happens in each part of the home on a normal weekday: where you eat, work, play, rest and store things. Then mark which activities need privacy, which need quiet and which simply need to look tidy. Those answers tell you where a curtain is enough and where a real partition is worth the cost.
If you are still at the start of the process, our guides to planning an apartment interior around your budget and choosing colours before furniture are good next steps. If one of your zones is a work corner, see where to put a home office in a small apartment.
Let SoulRoom help you plan it
At SoulRoom, we design and build homes that are beautiful, comfortable and suited to your budget. In Park Legend 2104, an open metal shelving unit frames one corner of the home without closing it off, so light and views still pass through.
If your apartment feels either too closed or too open, send us a message with your floor plan and how your family uses each room, and we will suggest where to divide and where to leave it open.
