Studio apartment design in Batumi: zones, storage and lighting

One room for everything

Studio apartment design in Batumi starts with a short list: who lives there, how many beds are needed, whether you cook at home and whether you work at a desk. In 25–40 m² the kitchen, bed, sofa and wardrobes share one room, and every decision can be seen from anywhere in it. So first we agree which zone comes first and which ones make room for it.

A new-build studio is most often narrow and long. By the entrance are the bathroom and the kitchen wall with the outlets, and at the far end a window or floor-to-ceiling glazing. Daylight comes from one side only, and anything placed by the window takes it away from the rest of the room. Almost every later choice depends on this geometry.

Three zoning schemes

For a studio we usually show two or three options based on these schemes and say straight away what each one costs you:

The wiring depends on the scheme: the sockets by the bed, sofa and desk sit in different places in each option. That is why we approve the scheme before drawing the electrical plan. How a bed is screened off with a curtain, shelving or glass, and what that does to the air in the room, is covered on the page about studio renovation.

A kitchen in full view

In a studio the kitchen can be seen from the sofa, from the bed and from the door. We decide in advance what stays open and what is hidden: usually the worktop and one shelf are on show, while the appliances, crockery and bin are behind fronts. We build the fridge into a tall unit by the entrance, away from the bed, so its hum is barely audible at night.

A straight kitchen along the wall by the entrance takes up the least floor space and is the easiest to connect to the developer's outlets. An L-shaped one gives more worktop but reaches into the room. We rarely draw an island in a studio under 40 m²: together with the walkways around it, it takes up almost the full width of a narrow room. More often we put in a peninsula or a breakfast bar that also serves as a table. Heights, walkways and where the cooker hood goes are covered in more detail on the page about kitchen-living room design.

Storage: what goes where

We design the wardrobes in a studio around how often things are taken out. Everything used daily should be within reach by the door or the kitchen, seasonal things go up top and under the bed, and bulky items are gathered in one narrow tall cupboard.

• Clothes on hangers: a 60 cm deep wardrobe by the entrance, with a two-tier rail for short items in part of it.
• Shoes and bags: a cabinet 30–35 cm deep by the door, with ventilation slots.
• Suitcases, winter duvets and beach things: the top section of a floor-to-ceiling wardrobe and the bed base.
• Vacuum cleaner, ironing board, cleaning products: a tall cupboard about 40 cm wide with a socket inside for charging.
• Crockery and food: drawers under the worktop and a top row of cabinets up to the ceiling.

We check widths with the furniture, not by eye. In a studio 3.2 m wide, a 60 cm deep wardrobe continued along the long wall as far as the sleeping area leaves 2.6 m. A 160×200 bed placed across the room then leaves 60 cm at its foot: less than we allow even in a separate bedroom, and a hinged wardrobe door will no longer open there. So we end the wardrobe before the bed, and if storage space is short, we put the bed along the wall. Carcasses and hardware for a humid climate are described in the section on custom wardrobes.

Lighting for one room

In a studio all the light fittings can be seen at once, and that is the main difference from an apartment with doors. So there is one colour temperature for the whole room, and different tasks are handled with circuits and brightness. Why different shades of white split an open space into patches is explained on the page about lighting design.

We group the lighting into scenes, each with its own switch or button. In the “evening” scene the kitchen is off, and the floor lamp and wall lights by the sofa are on. For work, the lamp over the desk and dimmed general lighting are on. Before sleep only the bedside lights stay on, and they are directional: one person reads while the other sleeps. We hide the lighting under the kitchen wall cabinets in a profile so that no glowing strip can be seen from the sofa.

A studio for yourself and a studio for letting

The same 30 m² is designed differently depending on who will live there:

If the studio is let in summer and you come in autumn, we make the guest features so they don't get in your way. While you are there, the lockable section becomes your wardrobe, the sofa bed stays a sofa, and the table by the window folds into a console. The other guest-oriented decisions, from photo angles to linen storage, are gathered on the page about designing an apartment for short-term guests.

What you get with a studio design project

We show the studio in 3D as a whole: it is one room, and looking at it in parts makes no sense. There are usually four views: from the entrance, from the window, from the bed and from the sofa, and the bathroom is shown separately.

A studio needs almost as many working sheets as a 1+1 apartment. An electrical plan with socket heights, lighting by circuit, plumbing outlets, a kitchen wall elevation, drawings of the built-in wardrobes, the bathroom tile layout and a materials list are needed in any apartment; in a small space they are simply more tightly packed. We price the renovation estimate straight from the materials list.

How much studio apartment design costs in Batumi

We price a studio up to 40 m² as one project, not per metre: from 4,760 to 7,130 ₾. The price includes the layout with zoning options, 3D, working drawings and the materials list. This is the designer's work; the renovation and furniture are priced separately.

A studio over 40 m² is priced at the full project rate, 145–190 ₾ per m². If you only need the furniture layout, a space plan costs 45–66 ₾ per m², and 3D of one room, which here means the whole studio, 660–960 ₾.

Made-to-measure wardrobes and a kitchen along the whole long wall, a glass partition and moving the kitchen make it more expensive. It costs less if the kitchen and bathroom stay where the developer put them and some of the furniture is ready-made. The final cost is set after the measured survey and once the scope of the project is agreed.