Polish firm Tamizo Architects are renowned for their exceptionally minimalist design work and conceptual, life-like renders. Working across architecture, interiors and industrial design, it’s not something the young team have eased into — they’ve been distilling all of their designs down to the bare essentials for quite some time. Keeping this reputation and some previous collaboration in mind, the clients knew exactly who to turn to for Warsaw House. By prioritising usability, privacy and immersion, this modernist abode demonstrates ambition, built on simplicity and functionality.

One of the famed mottos to come out of Bauhaus was ‘form follows function’; a motto that lives on wherever Tamizo Architects go. On a narrow and long plot bordering the forest, Tamizo Architects proposed a flat, longitudinal form. On the sides facing the road and neighbours, they ensured privacy with little openings. But where the building faces the forest, they’ve created a glass wall under an overhanging roof line that keeps the rays shining in. Tamizo Architects then planned “the most important living quarters” accordingly, to overlook the forest.

Tamizo Architects have taken their minimalist approach up a notch inside the elongated box. Knowing it wasn’t the client’s first rodeo, a certain level of trust in Tamizo Architects allowed for creative freedom. In their signature way, Tamizo Architects showed their creativity through restraint, selecting the very best materials to make up the bones of the home. This is best seen in the kitchen, with its mammoth concrete bench on a bed of pale timber flooring. We all know Poland can be a cold part of the world, so we’re happy to see a robust fireplace flanked by the extra soft sofa. Renders or not, this looks like an ideal spot to take comfort around the fire.

Tamizo Architects have given the owners of this Warsaw House the ultimate gift, of removing all of the excess and focusing on what’s important. Prescribing to the Mies van der Rohe philosophy of ‘less is more’ will never fail this clever team.