An explosion of energy through colours

This is colour as an explosion of energy, colour that could hurl you into the air if, by some magic power, colour was given force: a comic-book blast of Superman blue and red. It’s a bold choice, particularly since you cannot move from Woodward’s blue-and-red living room to, say, a bedroom painted a tranquil and self-effacing eggshell white.

The living room is the bedroom is the dining room. The apartment is one open space – and at 600 square feet, a very small space. And while many who live in small studios hide their beds in pull-down contraptions, Woodward does not. Her bamboo-backed four-poster stands large and proud, “a temple within a temple,” as she and her design team at D’Aquino Monaco call it.“

The apartment had a cramped, dark bedroom and a tiny, walled-off kitchen. But it also had a very large asset: a wraparound terrace that was nearly the same size as the living space.

Access was through a narrow living room door, though, and the terrace was only visible from two small windows in the living room, a small mullioned window in the bedroom, and another small window in the walled-off kitchen. Still, for Woodward, who had gotten into gardening when she lived in Los Angeles, the terrace was a big draw. And she was not concerned about a small living space. What was important to her was that her home be a refuge, she said, where she could decompress and restore herself. To create that refuge, she worked with Carl D’Aquino and Francine Monaco of D’Aquino Monaco, an architecture and design firm.

“The renovation, which took 18 months from planning to completion, cost about $150,000, with another $15,000 for furnishings. Windows were an important design element.

The multi-paned window in the bedroom was replaced with a more modern single panel of glass; in the kitchen, a window was added and another enlarged, giving Woodward views of both sides of her terrace; and the living room wall adjoining the terrace was replaced with glass doors.

The cast-iron radiators dating back to when the building was constructed, in 1927, were removed. In the bathroom, a new radiator was cleverly concealed in a glamorous wall of mirrored storage; in the main room, radiators were hidden behind two broad steps leading to the terrace.

And what’s interesting here, there is a lot of sky and blue. You see the tops of buildings, you see sky. It’s about sky.”