Apartment · Balatonalmádi · 2025

A half-covered terrace became living space

An eighty-square-metre apartment on an upper floor in Balatonalmádi, on the northern shore of Lake Balaton. The flat came with a half-covered terrace; that terrace has been enclosed with a sliding glass wall and now continues the living room.

The brief

The half-covered terrace was the best part of the flat and the least usable. Partly roofed and open at the sides, it was unusable in wind and out of season. At eighty square metres that is a great deal of lost floor.

The client asked for the feel of a seaside condo. Not the traditional Hungarian lakeside cottage, but a coastal apartment — pale timber, boarded walls, relaxed furniture, a surfboard on the wall.

The answer

The terrace was enclosed with a full-width sliding glass wall between it and the living room. Closed, the enclosed part works through the winter; open, the two become one living room that ends at the balustrade.

The glass wall alone is not enough to make the two spaces read as one. The beam line runs across the opening into the enclosed part. The floor continues without a threshold. The colour temperature of the light is the same on both sides, so the boundary does not return after dark.

The enclosed terrace became a seating area of its own, not storage. A hanging chair, a low seating group, grey-stained boarded cladding and a surfboard above it. Different in character from the living room, still part of the same flat.

The condo mood is carried by materials rather than props. Oak floor, white walls, dark beams, rattan and woven light fittings, a few blue surfaces in the artwork. Balaton is not the sea — but at Almádi the water fills the whole window, and the furnishing answers that.

What it took

At eighty square metres there is no utility room, so the washing machine had to fit in the bathroom. It sits behind a slatted oak screen with shelving beside it, in line with the vanity — part of the room rather than a fault to be hidden.

Data

Location: Balatonalmádi, northern shore of Lake Balaton, Hungary
Year: 2025
Type: Apartment, full interior design
Area: 80 m² plus enclosed terrace
The task: Enclosing a half-covered terrace and joining it to the living space
The request: The feel of a seaside condo
Status: Concept design

The living room seen from the dining area: beams across the ceiling, a sliding glass wall onto the enclosed terrace, a timber-backed television panel and an oak sideboard — The beam line runs across the opening and the floor continues without a threshold — only the glass marks the boundary.

The enclosed terrace: a woven hanging chair, a low seating group, grey-stained boarded cladding and a surfboard above it — The enclosed terrace is a seating area of its own: hanging chair, low group, grey-stained boards.

Bathroom with pale herringbone tiling and an oak vanity, next to it a slatted oak screen concealing the washing machine and shelving — The washing machine sits behind a slatted oak screen, in line with the vanity — part of the room.

Visualisations, not photographs · post-production includes AI-based upscaling and retouching

Ren Design is an interior architecture practice based in Budapest, working across Europe and the Gulf. On this project it produced the full interior design for the apartment. What such a package contains is set out in what you receive.