Zen for a young star

With its sleek feel and studied contrast of straight lines with curved, sometimes circular details, Ginggay Joven’s 67-square-meter, one-bedroom bachelorette’s pad doesn’t look like the home of a 24-year-old.

Then again, when you think that the lady occupant has been a prolific broadsheet writer since her teens, and that she has interned at CNN in Atlanta, Georgia, and has actually been an editor of a teen magazine and is currently preparing to launch a new glossy title, the adult, no-nonsense interiors do fit this particular 24-year-old entirely.

As interior designer J. Antonio Mendoza tells it, this young woman has a learned aesthetic. "All she wanted was clean lines and something very soothing," says Mendoza, who worked on the condo unit located in one of Manila’s newest high-rises.

The result is a Zen look, but nothing too overt. The home is dominated by a cream and deep brown – almost black– palette. To emphasize the singular look of the three divisions – living area, bedroom and kitchen only one kind of wood was employed: tanguile with a wenge finish.

The rather boxed-in feel of the deep brown borders, as in the framed ceiling or the black-outlined sisal car-pet, is softened by the use of mirrors and by the minimal bursts of pale pastel and minute suggestions of greens: the leaves of a single tall stem, for example, in the living area, and a convex pot of grass.

The accompanying B&B Italia-style chairs of the Scandinavian sandblasted dining-working table with steel legs are in mango, and the abstract paintings that adorn the walls provide much needed color. One artwork is a gray-toned Rock Drilon with a single slash of red from his Dalai Lama-inspired series. The two Solers have more generous servings of color. In the bedroom, the headboard panel has a tinge of chartreuse, matched to the bedskirt in similar fabric.

While square is the favored shape in this unit, the circular pieces call attention with their innovative design, as in the very ‘30s but modern low glass-and-steel table inspired by Eileen Grey in the living room. Or the plastic gauze-like fabric used in the lamps whose pendant-like switches were designed by Mendoza himself, who has done interiors for boutiques, flats and residential homes.

The white candles in varying heights on a tray by the ledge in the living room complete the serene Zen-like feel. With its maximized use of space, Mendoza says the design of the whole unit is one of the most popular looks in the design world at the moment.

In the end, what really matters is that the quiet, relaxing mood of the place is exactly what the hyperactive workaholic 24-year-old tenant needs at the end of her day.