The apartment designed by Kamilya Zhakypova, of Alchemia.group, in Esentai City, Almaty, belongs to this second category. It was not born of a trend, nor of a desire to reproduce a recognisable aesthetic. It emerged from a conversation and from the story of a woman who had already inhabited different interior languages  – from Neoclassicism to Provençal style, through the refined minimalism so often repeated in contemporary design  – until she reached the need to translate a feeling.

The client, a traveller with a deep relationship with nature and with the experiences accumulated along the way, carried with her a memory impossible to ignore: the moment she swam in the ocean alongside blue whales in Bali. There are images that do not disappear; they live within us and, years later, transform into something else. In this case, they became matter. A silence in shades of blue, a sense of scale, and the idea of standing before something greater.

Kamilya sought to translate this impression without making it literal, giving rise to a home that is not intended as an escape from the city, but rather a pause within it. A place where the walls seem to breathe, where wood reveals its imperfections, and where handcrafted plaster becomes a skin. “The use of plaster as a unifying material throughout the space is what best expresses my approach to design,” the designer explains, describing how this element establishes continuity between architecture, light, and spatial perception.

There is a particular beauty in what does not strive for perfection. The wood grain was chosen precisely for its irregularities and for the marks that reveal the material had a life before arriving here. Nature was not concealed, but allowed to participate.

The tones follow this intention: sand, clay, soft greens, stone, and natural textiles create the feeling of a landscape warmed by sunlight. Nothing shouts. Everything suggests.

Perhaps the greatest challenge was precisely this: to create emotion without excess. To make the home a place of recognition, where rather than functioning as an archive of accumulated objects, it chooses to accompany life — returning space to listening, presence, and the very state of being.
Kamilya summarises this idea simply: “A home is not an isolated shell; it is a continuation of the world that surrounds it.”