Illustrator and designer Ferry Gouw has lived in this block of flats in High Street Kensington for over two decades. Known as Festival House, the brick and tile-clad block was built in 1951 to coincide with the Festival of Britain and represented a futuristic view of what modern living could mean. After 17 years of living in a flat on the ground floor, Ferry bought this fourth-floor flat in 2014 with his wife, the photographer Katie Bagley, and set about creating a calm and flexible space with the help of their architect friend Tom Rowland. As the flat comes on the market, Ferry reflects on his design of the space and tells us why it’s been the perfect place to bring up their one-year-old son, Rei.

Ferry: “I moved to London from Indonesia for school in 1997. My parents bought a flat on the ground floor of this 1950s block in High Street Kensington and I lived there with my sister and then my brother when he moved over here. We were literally living like feral children and I went through a punk stage. I’d buy punk t-shirts and go to all the record shops in Kensington Market.

“A few years after my siblings left in 2005, Katie, who was my girlfriend then, moved in. When we got engaged, we started to think that it might be time for a move and started looking around the area. All we could find were two-bed maisonettes in houses that had been chopped up into two or three flats. Having lived in a purpose-built block of flats, the idea of floors creaking above us seemed like such an alien idea.

“We loved modern architecture, but we just couldn’t find anything. One day our neighbour told us that the flat upstairs was on the market and we decided to go and have a look. It had been a rental forever, so it was in quite a bad state with cables running across the walls and ceiling. It was being sold as a two-bathroom flat, but in reality one of them was a cupboard with a shower that you could barely get into. We showed a couple of friends around and they all thought we were mad for even considering it. But we loved that it was a blank slate and bought it in 2014.

“For us, the most striking thing about the space was the light, which we always lacked on the ground floor. There’s only one level above this flat, which is just a half floor, so light flows into the space through the windows and roof lights.

“All the flats in the building have the same layout, but by moving upstairs we’ve gained what would have been the hall space at the front of the building. The former owners used this as a strange living room with leather chairs pushed against the walls, but lots of flats use it as a third bedroom. We’ve turned it into our studio and workspace with one long desk running the length of the wall. Like most of the flat, we’ve designed it to be as flexible as possible so it’s basically just a horizontal surface, which we can clear and use as a table or lay food out on for parties.

“The living room is next to this, and you can access the balcony from both rooms. We’ve added aluminium doors in between the studio room and the living room so that we can close the spaces off if needs be. I work all hours as I have a lot of clients in America, so it’s nice to have the option to shut myself away if necessary. I’ve been freelancing since I finished art school so the separation between life and work has always been pretty minimal for me.

“Even though we didn’t hugely change the layout, we tore down all the walls and rebuilt everything the way we wanted it, with the help of our architect friend Tom Rowland. Everything is designed to our specifications and based on how we wanted to live. The kitchen was blocked in by a wall, which was the first thing you encountered when you walked into the flat, so we decided to open up the space by taking it down. We got rid of the tiny second bathroom, using the space to make the main bedroom a bit bigger and creating a utility cupboard with room for a washing machine.

“I had a vision from the beginning to create a space that feels open and full of light, but also visually quiet. We wanted to limit the amount of materials we used in order to give the space coherency rather than creating small cubicles of space that feel tiny and different. There’s original parquet flooring in the living area and studio, and we used cork for the rest of the floors. The walls are white throughout, as we figured that it was a way to make a relatively modest flat feel bigger.

“We ripped out the spotlights because I just think everyone looks bad under them. We have hidden LEDs in the edges of all the rooms, which are set to provide gentle ambient lighting. There are also table lamps dotted around the space to provide nice mood lighting. Our best friend visits a lot – in normal times – and if we ever try and watch TV with him, he’ll just end up falling asleep. It’s an incredibly calming space.

“We sourced Max Lamb’s ‘Marmoreal’ terrazzo from Dzek, which we’ve used sparingly throughout the flat. It adds a burst of material variation in the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and living room.

“I’ve been a huge fan of his work since I discovered him in an art magazine when he was at the Royal College of Art. We were one of the first to use ‘Marmoreal’ and I love how it offers a post-modern, amusing take on terrazzo. Most terrazzo is tiny bits of random stuff, but I loved how Max had chosen specific marbles and transformed what’s essentially a waste product. I like that it has a sense of humour.

“I bumped into Max at an art festival at the Tate a while back and was a bit star-struck. We’ve since exchanged some of our works – I sent him some drawings I did of ‘My Grandfather’s Tree’, an installation that he showed at Somerset House in 2015.

“The most valuable thing about this flat is that we never bought it with the intention to move and sell, so it really feels like home. It’s been an amazing space for our son, Rei, and life with him here has been so calm. Even our cat’s personality changed when we moved from the ground floor to this flat – he used to be so difficult but chilled out almost as soon as we got up here.

“We’re moving because I’ve been in the building for 24 years and Rei is getting more and more boisterous. We’re looking for something perhaps in Chiswick, but we’re very open-minded. A garden would be great, so the chances are we’ll end up in an older property. I believe that if you engage with a building in a modern way, then it will become your version of modern living. For me, modern living is always about being consciously engaged with your surroundings and living without any nostalgic longing or wishing it was something else.

“That said, I will miss everything about this flat – especially the bathtub. There’s a skylight above it, so we get sunlight all day, which turns taking a bath into an amazing experience.

“I’ll miss the area too, as I’ve got to know every nook and cranny over the years. Kensington was a totally different place when I moved here 24 years ago, but today we love going to the Churchill Arms, which is our local pub. It’s probably the most photographed pub in the UK, with 70 Christmas trees adorning it in winter and amazing floral displays in the summer. There’s a really incredible Thai restaurant at the back of the pub where we’re regulars. We basically know the menu by heart.

“We could just stay in the area and go to all of our favourite places, but it’s time for a change. The flat has been a wonderfully calming space for us, and we hope that it will have the same effect on whoever buys it.”