After attending college at the New School in New York, Donelle Kosch lived in Copenhagen and Berlin before finally settling in Amsterdam, where she married a Dutchman.
“I’ve been in Europe my whole adult life,” said Ms. Kosch, now 36, who grew up outside Detroit.
Nevertheless, she could never forget New York. And the longer she was away, the more she wanted to return. “I missed the culture of New York and the disposition that people have here,” she said. “I missed some of that energy.”
At the beginning of 2023, Ms. Kosch decided to rent an apartment in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, for a few weeks to have an extended visit with her sister’s family in the neighborhood. By the time the rental period was ending, she didn’t want to leave.
“I wanted to spend more time here,” she said. “And I was in a financial position to have a second home.”
Ms. Kosch was working as a music booking agent at the time. If she had a pied-à-terre in Brooklyn that was well designed, she figured, it would give her not only a reason to visit more often, but also a place to meet with industry contacts in the city.
Looking at listings, she fell almost immediately for a 450-square-foot former tailor shop in Boerum Hill that had been converted to an apartment. The home was part of a larger co-op, but the unit, a studio, was contained in its own single-story yellow-brick building that opened directly to the street.
From Amsterdam, she toured the apartment via FaceTime before closing that May for $635,000, having few concerns about the renovations the interior needed.
“I was purposely looking for something to make my own,” Ms. Kosch said.
She also knew that in such a tight space creating comfort while leaving enough room to host a crowd would be a challenge. But, as a follower of the YouTube channel Never Too Small, she had seen how architects and designers routinely work wonders in small spaces. One particular video that showcased a 350-square-foot apartment by the New York-based architecture firm Dunham Robinson had stuck with her.
“After I bought the apartment, I went back through the channel, found it and reached out to them,” Ms. Kosch said.
Michael Dunham and Rachel Robinson, the firm’s founders, were eager collaborators. “We were instantly struck by this unusual existing condition,” Ms. Robinson said. “It was a former commercial space that had most recently been a live-work artist space.”
Mr. Dunham and Ms. Robinson decided the best approach to create what Ms. Kosch wanted was to completely gut the interior and reconfigure the floor plan.
“We tried to create these discrete rooms within what is essentially one room,” Ms. Robinson said. “Kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, office, bathroom, laundry room.”
“The biggest challenge,” Mr. Dunham said, “was creating a place for entertaining,” while squeezing in everything else.
In the reconfigured apartment, Dunham Robinson positioned an enlarged kitchen just inside the front door. Equipped with stainless steel cabinets and a small island with a cooktop and oven beneath a custom hood, it was built by Osara New York, a company that frequently fabricates commercial kitchens. The designers added a small coffee bar by recessing it into a wall.
Next to the kitchen, they created a dining area centered on a vintage dining table by the German designer Rainer Daumiller that can expand with leaves. A custom, L-shaped banquette in channel-tufted leather and Daumiller dining chairs provide flexible seating options for different numbers of guests.
The floor plan leaves just enough space behind the banquette for a small sofa, which creates a compact living room before a frosted glass panel that demarcates the bedroom, where Dunham Robinson squeezed a washer and dryer, and a desk, into a corner beside a built-in wardrobe.
To save floor space in the sleeping area, they installed wall-mounted Float shelves from New Tendency to serve as bedside tables.
Ms. Kosch also gave Dunham Robinson directions for the color and material palette: brick and butter.
The brick was inspired by a visit to the Glass House, designed by the architect Philip Johnson in Connecticut, which has a brick floor. The butter was inspired by her love of food and cooking.
The designers responded with deep reddish-brown brick tile for the floor and textured buttery yellow tile for some walls in the kitchen and bathroom.
Construction took about eight months after Dunham Robinson discovered that structural repairs and new insulation were required after demolition. The apartment was complete in May 2024 at a cost of roughly $400,000.
In the interim, Ms. Kosch changed careers, becoming a women’s health coach, though she is still mostly based in Amsterdam. While she no longer needs to entertain people in the music industry, she has found her studio just as valuable for hosting family and friends, even for six adults and two children on Thanksgiving last year.
Regardless of whether she’s hosting guests or enjoying some quiet time alone, she said, “I’m super happy here.”
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