Furnishing a Penthouse: One Concept for Light, Space and Privacy

What makes a penthouse different from an apartment

Furnishing a penthouse is not simply a bigger version of furnishing an apartment. The conditions are different. There is more light, more sky, more uninterrupted floor area, often sloping roofs, almost always a terrace, and with them a feeling of exposure you do not know on lower floors.

These conditions are a gift and a task at once. Light makes the rooms magnificent, and unbearable in summer if nobody directs it. Spaciousness impresses, and can feel inhospitable when it has no structure. And all that glass gives you views out, but also views in.

A whole-home concept takes these three themes together, not one after another. How we work in principle is described in the article on the whole-home design concept. With a penthouse there is one more fact: many decisions have to be made earlier than in an existing apartment. So where do you begin? With the thing that decides whether you can live up there at all, the light.

Light: when too much of it becomes a problem

Light is the reason people buy penthouses, and the most common reason they do not feel comfortable in them. In Viennese attic apartments, summer overheating is a well-known issue. Large glass surfaces facing south and west let a lot of heat into the room in the afternoon, and heat that has come in is hard to get out again.

The most effective protection sits on the outside. External venetian blinds, awnings or overhangs keep the sun off before it reaches the glass. Curtains and blinds on the inside help against glare and for privacy, but far less against heat. That is why sun protection belongs in the first planning phase, not on the list of things to retrofit after moving in.

Building services help as well. Cooling through the floor or ceiling is quiet and invisible, but it needs planning in the build-up. The options are explained in the article on heating and cooling through surfaces.

Picture the day it works: morning light on the floor, blinds that lower themselves at one o'clock, and a room still cool when guests step in at seven.

In the evening the theme reverses. When the sun sets outside, large panes turn into black mirrors. A good lighting concept therefore works on several levels: indirect ambient light, targeted accents on walls and art, warm fixtures at seating height. The room stays inviting at night too. How lighting fixtures become part of the planning is shown in the article on lighting design. How to steer daylight deliberately is described in the article on daylight in the home.

A penthouse does not need more light. It needs directed light.

Once the light is under control, the next problem shows itself: what do you do with 70 square metres that nobody has divided?

Space: structuring large rooms without dividing them

An open living area of 70 square metres is a dream on the plan. In reality it can feel like a hotel lobby: impressive, but with no place to arrive. People feel at ease when they have something at their back, a manageable group of furniture and a clear relationship to the other areas.

The answer is zoning. Instead of putting up walls, you create areas with groups of furniture, rugs, lighting, ceiling steps or built-ins that double as room dividers. For our couple it might look like this: the kitchen, with a long island, forms one pole, the dining area for ten people the middle, and a seating landscape facing the terrace the other pole. A low bookcase wall sets off a small reading corner without blocking the view. More on this in the article Kitchen, dining, living: zones instead of rooms.

Imagine the same room on a Friday night. Ten friends around the table, someone refilling glasses at the island, two others sunk into the seating landscape with the city lights behind them.

Large rooms also need furniture of fitting proportion. A sofa that looks generous in an Altbau apartment gets lost in a penthouse. Modular seating landscapes can be put together so that they structure the room. Why the sofa often plans the room, not the other way round, is explained in the article on planning a room around the sofa.

Then comes acoustics. Large rooms with glass, stone and smooth ceilings echo. Conversation becomes tiring, and the clatter of crockery from the kitchen carries as far as the seating corner. Rugs, curtains, upholstered furniture and acoustically effective built-ins solve this. The background is described in the article on acoustics in the open living space.

Quiet rooms are only half the story, though. Who is allowed to see you in them?

Privacy: who sees in, who may go where

A penthouse sits at the top, but rarely alone. In Vienna you often look onto the roof terraces, windows and attic floors of neighbouring buildings, and they look back. Privacy therefore arises on two levels: towards the outside and within the apartment.

Towards the outside, curtains that filter views in during the day and close completely in the evening help, as do planted terrace areas and screening elements that are part of the architecture. How textiles improve acoustics and comfort at the same time is shown in the article on curtains and rugs.

Within the apartment, what matters is the separation between the guest area and the private area. Our couple often have visitors, sometimes overnight. So the parents' area with bedroom, dressing room and bathroom lies behind a sliding door as a suite of its own, as described in the article on the private area as a sequence of rooms. Guests have a room of their own with a shower room near the entrance. Everyone can close a door, and the apartment still does not feel fragmented.

And when the doors are open, the best room of all is waiting outside.

The terrace as a second living room

From May to September the roof terrace is often the most-used room of a penthouse. It should not be fitted out with a few garden chairs after the move. It should be part of the concept from the first sketch.

The transition between inside and outside is decisive. When the floor inside and out is as similar as possible in colour and level, and large sliding elements glide fully aside, the terrace becomes part of the living space. What to watch technically, for example the level of the threshold and drainage, is described in the article on the transition to terrace and garden.

For couples who like to cook and entertain, an outdoor kitchen can make sense. Worktops in Dekton by Cosentino suit this, because they are UV-resistant and unaffected by frost and heat. Structure, water supply and waste water must, however, be checked carefully on a roof. The article on the outdoor kitchen on the terrace goes into detail.

Imagine the first warm evening in May: the sliding doors vanish into the wall, the stone underfoot is the same inside and out, and the grill is already hot while the last light hits the Kahlenberg.

Sloping roofs, niches and made-to-measure storage

Many penthouses in Vienna are converted attic floors with slopes, dormers and irregular walls. This gives the rooms character and makes standard furniture almost useless. A wardrobe from a catalogue either leaves a gap under a slope or does not fit at all.

This is where bespoke built-ins show their value. Our joinery workshop Tischlerkultur, rooted in Viennese joinery tradition since 1935, makes wardrobes that follow the slope, window seats in dormers, bookcase walls around windows and dressing rooms that use every centimetre. You get storage without the rooms feeling fuller. You will find examples on our page about fitted wardrobes. How much floor space a dressing room really needs is explained in the article on the walk-in dressing room.

Kitchen and bathroom benefit too. A fitted kitchen that stands in the open room is also a piece of furniture you see from the seating corner. And a bathroom under a slope needs planning that puts the shower and vanity unit where you can stand upright. More about our bathrooms is on the bathrooms page.

All of this works best when it is decided before the walls are closed. When exactly is that?

Getting in early: a penthouse in a new build or attic conversion

Many penthouses are sold by developers before they are finished. That is an opportunity, because at this stage layout, electrics, plumbing and sun protection can still be adjusted through special requests. It has a catch: special requests have deadlines, and whatever is changed after those deadlines costs many times more.

Waiting has a price. Every unplanned summer afternoon is spent behind drawn curtains. Every evening in a room that echoes is a conversation you cut short. And the window for the cheap decisions closes on the developer's schedule, not yours.

If you are buying a penthouse from a developer, clarify these points early:

• Sun protection: Is external sun protection planned, and at which windows?
• Electrical planning: Where are the outlets for lighting, the sockets for sofa and bed, the connections for kitchen and island?
• Plumbing: Are water and waste water prepared for a cooking island or outdoor kitchen?
• Floors: Which finish is planned, and can the standard be swapped for a continuous finish?
• Heating and cooling: Is cooling planned, or at least prepared?
• Interior doors and walls: Can walls be moved, or sliding doors planned instead of hinged doors?
• Smart home: Will conduits be laid for lighting control, shading and network?

At Richard Atelier you have one contact from the first line on paper to the handover. That person talks to the developer and makes sure the special requests fit the later concept. For controlling light and shading, the article on smart home you cannot see helps.

With a penthouse taken over as a finished apartment, the room for manoeuvre is smaller, but it has not disappeared. Sun protection can often be retrofitted, built-ins and lighting can be adapted, and textiles and furnishings change the effect of a room fundamentally.