After a Flood, a Journalist's Dark Basement Flat Was Redesigned to Feel Surprisingly Light — Here's How

A bright, white room with pale window frames and large sunbeams looks out on a sunken garden.

"The flat was not in a nice state when I first saw it," explains the architect Charles Wu, founder of the award-winning design practice Polysmiths. "The floorboards had curled out and it smelled of damp — it was a mess."

Just a few weeks after its owner, German journalist Christoph Halstenberg, moved in, a flash flood forced him to move out again. However, this misfortune turned out to be a blessing, because the work needed to transform the dated, gloomy flat into a modern home had to be actioned sooner than originally planned.