Angel Flat London
Angel Flat is a minimalist apartment located in Angel, London, designed by Xu & Wang Studio. The challenge of designing a first home abroad within 50 square metres of Georgian architecture is as much an act of listening as it is of making. In a building where creaking timber floors and aged plaster mouldings carry centuries of accumulated character, the temptation to impose a contemporary vision must be consciously resisted. Xu & Wang Studio approached this project through restraint – reading the existing fabric as a collaborator rather than a constraint, and allowing traces of time to remain not as nostalgia but as structural meaning.
The apartment’s generous ceiling height becomes the primary spatial asset, lending a sense of verticality that offsets the compact footprint. Rather than partitioning the living area into fixed zones, the studio conceived a flexible arrangement anchored by a custom console table positioned behind the sofa. This single piece performs multiple roles – dining surface, workspace, and spatial divider – compressing the logic of an entire floor plan into one object. It is a solution rooted in the tradition of transformation furniture, where a piece earns its place by multiplying its function without multiplying its presence.
Material selection throughout the flat operates within a careful tonal logic. The living space is defined by linen, jute, handmade Moroccan tiles, and velvet – a palette that is light and tactile, referencing both the organic warmth of vernacular craft and the quiet sensibility of contemporary Scandinavian interiors. The bedroom shifts register: wool and silk introduce a slightly deeper palette that contracts the space inward, producing an atmosphere of deliberate intimacy. These are not decorative decisions but environmental ones, using material density and light absorption to modulate how each room is experienced.
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