In the historic centre of Rostov-on-Don, a 67 square metre apartment offers an intriguing study in how decorative intervention can transform the perception of space without altering its architecture. Designed by Porto-based interior designer Svetlana Andreeva-Shchepeteva, the residence occupies a listed early twentieth century building on one of the city’s principal streets, where heritage restrictions prevented any modification to the original floor plan.
The commission came from a longstanding client who had previously entrusted the designer with her private residence. Initially conceived as an investment property, the apartment was intended to accommodate short stays while also providing a distinctive setting for photography. Rather than pursuing the neutrality often associated with rental interiors, Andreeva-Shchepeteva was given complete creative freedom to develop a space with a recognisable identity.
With three compact rooms, relatively small windows and generous ceiling heights, the existing architecture presented an unusual set of proportions. Mirrors became the principal means of manipulating them. In the living room, a reflective wall incorporating a red door is articulated by a rectangular frame with rounded corners, a geometry repeated on the opposite side of the room and extended into the hallway. These interventions establish visual continuity while introducing an ambiguity between actual and reflected space.
The treatment continues into the kitchen, where mirrored upper cabinets and a reflective backsplash minimise the visual weight of storage, and into the shower room, where an entire wall is given over to reflection. Even the window reveals are mirrored, capturing fragments of the surrounding historic architecture and the changing light of the street below. The city consequently becomes an active presence within the interior.
Equally significant are the ceilings. Beneath successive layers of paint and whitewash, the designer discovered surviving plaster cornices and modest ceiling roses. Rather than simply restoring these details, she expanded their decorative vocabulary with additional plasterwork and commissioned hand-painted compositions over a grey ground. The resulting ceilings introduce an unexpected ornamental intensity, recalling the elaborate interiors of St Petersburg while establishing a counterpoint to the predominantly white walls.
Throughout the apartment, decoration also serves an architectural purpose. In the particularly narrow second bedroom, a bed positioned beneath the window becomes an almost built-in element, enclosed by mouldings and a canopy. Red and white striped textiles, cylindrical cushions and black rope fringe lend the composition a theatrical character, turning spatial limitations into a deliberate design feature.
The principal bedroom adopts a quieter interpretation of the same decorative language. A palm-patterned textile panel replaces the conventional headboard, suspended from painted bamboo and edged with rope fringe. Terracotta tones, an oversized bolster and expressive black tassels reinforce the room’s eclectic character.
Andreeva-Shchepeteva’s connection to Portugal introduces another, more personal dimension. Working with a ceramic atelier in Rostov, she developed bespoke tiles inspired by traditional Portuguese azulejos. Their classical composition of flowers and fruit incorporates an unexpected local reference: a red boiled crayfish, associated with the Don region. The detail establishes a subtle dialogue between the designer’s adopted home and the apartment’s geographical identity.
Furniture contributes a further layer of cultural and historical references. A striped sofa and green fringed ottoman were designed specifically for the project, alongside pieces produced by local craftspeople, including a steel étagère and an agave lampshade. These contemporary commissions coexist with a Finnish mid-century floor lamp, a Latvian television console from the 1960s, a Siberian wool rug, Cesca chairs, a chinoiserie cabinet and a Space Age pressed-metal wall panel.
Despite the diversity of these objects, the interior maintains a coherent visual language through its restricted palette. White provides the dominant architectural background, grey lends depth to the ceilings, and red appears in carefully positioned accents, from the living room door to the upholstery, textiles and ceramic details.
For Andreeva-Shchepeteva, whose work is typically characterised by more extensive use of colour, the project represents a deliberate departure. Here, the decorative richness emerges less from chromatic saturation than from the interplay of surfaces, historical references and individual objects. The result demonstrates how an interior can acquire a strong contemporary identity through the reinterpretation of existing architecture, rather than its replacement.
