Interiors: Turning the tables in a dream factory

FOR MOST PEOPLE, the idea of living and working with the same person is abhorrent, yet there are a few who thrive on constant companionship buoyed by shared interests. Nikki Blustin and Oliver Heath, of Blustin Heath Design, are one such couple, though unusually, their partnership is of the purely platonic and professional kind.

The setting for this seemingly harmonious arrangement is an old leather warehouse off London's Brick Lane, where they share a first-floor office space with five others, and rent the floor above as their home.

They first met while studying architecture in Oxford, though neither qualified (a common occurrence among architectural students, since it takes seven years to do so). Their business is called Blustin Heath Design, a name barely adequate for what they do, which ranges from product and installation design to film-making.

On first sight, their flat is neither amazingly impressive, nor magnificently designed. The raw elements of scarred cement floors, blasted brick walls and metal-framed windows are typical of the popular ideal of an East-End- warehouse-made-home, but few details seem staggeringly original. What does make their home remarkable, however, is that it was converted from a filthy sweatshop on the sort of budget most would allocate for a sofa: a total of pounds 2,000.

The pair started looking for a house in 1995, after leaving university, at a time when there was still a chance of finding a bargain in the now-fashionable area around Shoreditch. The government had recently relaxed its laws on living-working units, allowing some previously commercial properties to be adapted for residential use. In spite of this, it still took several months to persuade the landlord to allow them to move in, and a further 18 months to make the flat habitable.

"We knew we could live together, since we had shared a house with five others at Oxford," says Oliver, "and we both want-ed the same thing - a place where we could finally put into practice what we had spent so long studying. The great thing about this flat is that it gave us a chance to be our own clients."

That they had some outlet for their creative frustration was just as well, since the shortage of jobs in the architectural sector meant that finding work was not easy. In the end (after Oliver, now 29, had tried his hands at various other professions, including working as a windsurfing instructor and fire-eater) they decided to start working from home, and when, after a year or so, the office space on the first floor became free, the pair moved downstairs. "Having never had any job security, I decided that I may as well be working for myself and doing what I wanted to do," Oliver says.

The renovation of the flat was dramatic. "When we arrived the place was pretty disgusting." Nikki recalls. "The two large tables on which the leather used to be cut up took up most of the room. A lot of rubbish had to be cleared out, and there were no services. For a while the only light we had was from the city skyline. It was definitely quite spooky at first." The lack of heating was a more serious discomfort. "We had to eat huge amounts of food in order to fend off the cold. We'd get dressed before going to bed. It was ridiculous," Oliver remembers.

"Of course money was an issue," explains Nikki, now 28. "You don't spend so long as a student without worrying about it. But it wasn't a priority." And in fact, the lack of funds has nurtured their creativity: the kitchen worktop is fabricated from aluminium sheeting from a local printing press, while the window-cleaner's ladders that lead to the sleeping platforms were bought from the builders' yard next door for a tenner apiece.

"Pretty much everything in this flat is either begged or found," says Nikki. The few bargain purchases, such as the hairdresser's chair with its overhead dryer, are the result of foragings around Brick Lane. "Initially we thought of having a lot of them around a conference table for meetings," says Oliver.

Today, the 900sq ft flat is basically one room. In spite of the metal windows and bare brick walls, there is a cosiness to the flat that is usually absent in its sleeker loft counterparts. This is partly to do with the motley collection of china mugs and the jumble of mismatched cushions in the sitting area, and partly to do with the raw materials that have been left in their unembellished form. But it is also because this is very much a flat for living in, and not merely a house that has been designed for show.

Kitchen units built from plywood bank the southern wall, while the plywood bedroom capsules, with their sleeping platforms and storage space beneath, have been built against the north-facing Perspex windows. The bedroom doors are almost concealed in the sides of the walls.

The television and cushioned seating area occupies the whole of one corner, while the central space is dominated by a swing (put in by Oliver so that he can practice his acrobatics) and a gargantuan table, which was originally used as a surface for slicing the leather hides. The table, which is now in two parts, has been suspended from the ceiling by pulleys, and adapted so that it can be reduced in size by removing the outer rim.

"I love its flexibility and its shifting quality," says Oliver. "And how many dining tables do you know that can seat 25?" This shifting feature is a deliberate echo of a nautical theme that informs much of Oliver's work; the bedrooms have been built to resemble the bows of ships.

Flexibility is as much a characteristic of Blustin Heath's work as it is of their lifestyle. "We exchange ideas and help each other out," says Nikki. They also work on independent projects: Oliver has recently directed a series of films for the newly opened British Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and last year the flat was used as the location for Touch, a film that was screened at the National Film Theatre.

Nikki is generally tolerant of such disruptions, although on this occasion, when there were 20 crew and 10 actors in the flat, she admits that she had "to bail out". They claim that the proximity of the bedrooms poses little embarrassment and, Nikki says, "If one of us is ever really desperate for privacy then the other will go away for the weekend". They are like mutually respectful siblings. "Even if we argue there is always a sense that it will be alright in the end," Oliver says.

The fact that Nikki was able to tolerate weeks without a proper bathroom, heating or electricity marks her out from most girls, and makes the absence of girly trappings a little less surprising. Apart from three mirrors lodged beneath her sleeping platform, there are very few feminine touches in the flat. "I'm not even sure what girly trappings are," Nikki smiles.

What also makes the Blustin Heath partnership unusual and sets them apart from their rival fledgling designers is their lack of arrogance. When Oliver was awarded the title of Young Designer of the Year '98 by BBC's Homefront, the duo embraced the opportunity. Others might have regarded such a crass association with disdain, but Blustin Heath saw the media attention as a welcome vehicle for future employment.

Their commission from Pilkington Glass, who subsequently approached Blustin Heath and asked them to design a new range, illustrates how they have had to adapt their designs for the mass market. "We were forced to fathom out the bizarre reality of most peoples' homes, and discovered that houses all over the country are littered with a frenzy of flowers and patterns. So we honed the ideas down to our individual format, while trying to make them appeal to everyone," Nikki elucidates.

Their approach to their flat, as well as to their work, is every bit as pragmatic. "The pictures you see in magazines are most definitely not representative of how most people live, or indeed of how most people want to live," says Nikki. It is this frank recognition that best reflects their practice's professional ethos.

Blustin Heath may only be in the kindergarten of its career; but if Oliver and Nikki's achievements to date are anything to go by, then they will be spending considerably more than pounds 2,000 on their next home.

Blustin Heath Design: 0171 739 9618 or blustin.heath@dial.pipex.com