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Rendering of a study in a Budapest villa, separated from the living room by an open, double-sided oak bookshelf with LED strips inside the bays, an oak desk on a red Persian rug in front of it
A bookshelf instead of a partition: you can see through it, light and spatial continuity survive, and the study is still a room of its own.

Apartment · Budapest · 2026

A bookshelf instead of a partition

The conversion and renovation of one floor of a Budapest Bauhaus villa. The task was to create two new rooms without losing the coherence of the largest space.

The brief

The former study became a bedroom, and a new study had to be taken out of the living room. With a blockwork or plasterboard partition that is a simple job — but it would have broken up the one large connected space in the villa.

There was a second request. The client's large family gathers at holidays, so a dining table for fourteen was needed. On ordinary days the same space has to work as living room and study.

The answer

Instead of a partition, a bookshelf separates the study from the living room. An open structure, usable from both sides: you can see through it, light and spatial continuity survive, and the two functions still stay apart.

The same system continues through the rest of the floor — as bookcase, door frame, sideboard, fireplace wall and aquarium housing. Its language draws on the work of Gyula Kaesz, a quiet nod to one of the major figures of Hungarian interior architecture, without quoting him.

The kitchen had been closed off from the living and dining space by a partition. That wall was removed and the kitchen became part of the shared room — which is what makes space for the fourteen-seat table, and what lets cooking, dining and sitting work together.

Colour comes from the client's paintings. They were not hung into a finished interior: the oak and cream base was set against them, and the rugs, upholstery and light fittings carry their colours further.

The bedroom and its bathroom are in blue tones. That is the other register of the flat: it balances the oak and the colour accents of the living room, and marks the point where the private part of the floor begins.

What it took

Shelving like this only sits well if it follows the order the villa already has. Window axes, opening heights and radiator recesses set the bay widths, and the shelf grid followed from those. The radiators were given slatted covers in the same oak.

The lighting design was developed with Solinfo, in two layers. Where light has to do work — on the shelves, on the worktops, in front of the paintings — restrained track lighting carries it, with the fitting itself barely visible. Where emphasis was wanted, the ceramic fittings of the Aromas Papi series provide the focal point: above the kitchen island and the dining table they mark where people stop.

A wall of books cannot be lit from above: a ceiling fitting reaches the edge of the top shelf and leaves the spines below it in shadow. The light has to arrive from the plane of the shelf — which is why LED strips are built into the individual bays.

How much light does a worktop need? →

Data

Location
Budapest, Hungary
Year
2026
Type
Conversion and renovation of one villa floor
Area
180 m²
The building
1930s modern villa
The task
A bedroom and a study without breaking up the main space
Lighting
Ren Design with Solinfo
Reference
Shelving after the work of Gyula Kaesz (1897–1967)
Status
Construction drawings complete, under construction
Panoramic view of the Budapest villa floor: kitchen island with ceramic pendants on the left, round dining table in the centre, living room behind, open oak shelving wall on the right
With the kitchen partition removed, cooking, dining and sitting work in one space.
Fourteen-seat oval oak dining table with blue upholstered chairs on a patterned Persian rug, stone fireplace and painting on the left, kitchen beyond
The holiday setting: fourteen places between the fireplace and the shelving. On ordinary days the same room is living room and study.
Kitchen island with marble worktop and tan upholstered bar stools, ceramic pendant lights above it, the fourteen-seat dining table alongside
Where emphasis is wanted, ceramic fittings mark the place: above the island and above the table.
Kitchen with veined marble worktop and splashback, oak fronts, reeded glass wall cabinet, lit spice shelf and potted herbs
On the worktop the light does the work: concealed under-cabinet lighting, no fitting in sight.
Living room with a burgundy velvet sofa on herringbone oak flooring, bookshelves on both sides and a built-in fireplace, dining room beyond
Here the same system is fireplace wall and sideboard: the same bay grid, a different job.
The separated study: oak desk in front of the window, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on both sides with LED strips inside the bays, built-in aquarium on the left
The light arrives from the plane of the shelf — which is why the spines are legible in the lower rows too.
Bathroom with a blue-green stone splashback, two backlit oval mirrors, oak vanity, reeded glass shower screen and slatted oak radiator cover
The blue tones of the bedroom and bathroom mark where the private part of the floor begins.

Renderings, not photographs · construction in progress

Ren Design is a Budapest interior architecture studio working across Europe and the Gulf. On this project it produced the full interior design for the villa floor, together with the joinery drawings for the built-in furniture and the lighting design. What a design package contains is set out in what you receive.