When you first met this apartment is surprising - it is dominated by cold dark colors, the living room is generally graphite gray. And this is all in St. Petersburg, the city, which is to say, gloomy, albeit majestic and beautiful. Sunny days here are rare, the climate is harsh, and here the living room in the glass pavilion on the roof, and in no less gloomy range than the waters of the Gulf of Finland. But then you remember that Peter is not always so gloomy that on sunny days he gets an unexpectedly joyful, almost euphoric look. And largely due to this twilight of its depth, which, if already highlighted, then begins to play a lot of semitones, highlights, texture depth. Yes, Peter is not so much gloomy as deep and sophisticated, and the interior of this apartment, architect Anna Samoilova, tried to make it complementary to the city, like him with this complex play of light and shadow, midtones and highlights.

The main thing in this interior, according to its author, is a unique play of light combined with modern design. That is why it was decided to make in the glass pavilion on the roof of the new house on the Sea Embankment not a winter garden, as was supposed by the project of the developer, but a living room. This is open from four sides, including the ceiling, the space - the Petersburg sky fills the room, and its changing color every second creates a unique play of light. Such open spaces are common somewhere in Los Angeles, but Peter is very unusual. First of all, the pavilion should have been insulated, for which it was necessary to install a ventilation system, but there was nowhere to place it - the walls and the ceiling were made of glass. Therefore, we decided to hide all the equipment under the floor, which had to be increased. Thanks to the raising of the floor, by the way, the view has improved - before that it was covered by a high roof fence. As a result, the level of the floor in the living room is higher than in other rooms, but it creates an interesting and unexpected spatial effect - after passing through the hall, you do not just enter the living room, but ascend, as if on the mezzanine floor. The apartment initially had a clear and very convenient layout and, as a result, did not require major changes. In the center there is a hall that leads to the living room. In the right wing there is a so-called day stay zone - a dining room and a kitchen, and in the left - a bedroom, office, bathrooms.

Unusual living room set the style of the interior. A classic would be out of place in an apartment where the central room is with glass walls and a ceiling. Therefore, the whole space is decorated in a contemporary style - with perfectly smooth walls, straight lines, and a single-color decor. But the owners did not want the interior to be tough, and the theme of the classics was nevertheless designated - with openwork lamps.

Another theme in the interior, leading - glossy surfaces. The whole apartment is painted by them - in the living room lacquered cabinets and crystal chandeliers in silver "covers", in the dining room wallpaper made of foil. In all rooms a lot of glass, mirrors and metal. They create a light game, glare, shimmer, even in cloudy weather they bring shine to the interior. And so that the interior was not visually cold, crossed, the paints thickened - the walls were painted in dark colors, furniture was picked up in rich colors. The fact that at first it seems gloomy turns out to be deep, multilevel - St. Petersburg produces the same impression, and the architect managed to create parallelism between the interior and the city. For example, the living room space is built on the contrast of dark gray and orange. Orange sofas will "highlight" the St. Petersburg sky in cloudy weather, and gray furnishings - shade it on sunny days.

Textures also thickened - there are a lot of wooden surfaces in the apartment. The warm texture of the tree contrasts with the cold luster of metal and glass, warms it. And the whole interior is built on this contrast - warm and cold, overcast and sunny. These are the features of life on the roof in St. Petersburg.

Project author Anna Samoilova: "This is my friend's apartment, and we chose it together. We liked it primarily because there was a glazed winter garden on the roof, which we later turned into a spectacular living room"