Mădălina S.'s house in Voluntari — 125 sqm of Bauwerk Cleverpark Mandorla parquet, stairs included

A warmly Scandinavian home, with wood as far as the eye can see

Some projects begin with a list of requirements, and some begin with a feeling. Mădălina's home was the second kind.

Mădălina S. was 37 years old at the time of the move. An expert in international taxation, a career woman — and a mother. She wanted a calm, warm home, free of decorative excess — a space that could breathe alongside her after long days, and keep pace with a small child who, in the meantime, has become two girls.

She chose Voluntari (the Matei Millo area) — the north of Bucharest, with easy access to the city and to international nurseries, yet with the quiet of a residential neighbourhood. For the concept and the interior scheme, she worked with studio Ioka Design, which proposed a warmly Scandinavian direction with contemporary accents — a calm white and grey palette, vertical panelling in light wood as a textural signature, understated furniture in shades of grey, and firm black accents (suspended pendant lights with brass detailing, dining chairs, bathroom radiators, metal shower frames, taps). The whole composition rests on the floor — as on a warm, unbroken base.

For the flooring, she came to Kulttur.

Why Bauwerk Cleverpark Mandorla

Bauwerk Cleverpark Oak Mandorla (the name "mandorla" means almond in Italian) is a floor that visually translates exactly what warm Scandinavian means:

• European oak with a uniform grading
• A warm, almond-beige tone — neither too yellow, nor too grey
• A brushed structure that brings out the natural grain of the wood
• A natural oiled finish, matt, which keeps the look of living wood alive under the hand

Mandorla, in a home with a great deal of white and grey on the walls, plus strong black accents, works as a layer of solid light on which everything settles — the warm wood underfoot counterbalances the contemporary rigour of the black pendants, the black chairs and the metal radiators. The whole interior seems to breathe at a slightly gentler temperature, however much rigour comes from above.

Technical specifications — Cleverpark 1250 Oak Mandorla

The project challenge: parquet on the stairs, with a specially made Bauwerk nosing

The most delicate technical part of the project was not the surface, but the stairs.

Mădălina and Ioka Design asked for complete visual continuity — every step clad in the same parquet as the rest of the house. No colour island, no material transition between the ground floor and the upper floor. The wood flows without a blink, from the entrance to the children's rooms.

For this we worked with Bauwerk on a special piece: a stair nosing made from the same Mandorla parquet, in the same oak grading, with the same oiled-brushed finish. Each step received:

• The horizontal tread clad in Mandorla parquet
• The vertical riser also clad in Mandorla
• The stair nosing — the key piece with a special rounded profile, made by Bauwerk from parquet identical to the rest of the house

The result: the stairs disappear visually as a distinct element and become part of the home's continuous surface. Seen from the lobby, they are no longer "functional furniture" — they are a horizontal continuation of the parquet on the rise.

When the steps and the floor speak the same language of wood, the house feels a storey taller and two degrees warmer.

General project specifications

About the collaboration with Ioka Design

With Ioka Design we align easily on principles — quality, attention to detail, nothing false, nothing forced. On this project, Ioka Design coordinated the overall visual concept — palette, furniture, accents, lighting. Kulttur took on the entire flooring side, with all the technical challenges of a continuous surface across the ground floor, the upper floor and the stairs.

When a designer works with a clean vision, the technical side settles behind the aesthetic — not the other way round. That is what we look for when we take on a project.