The thrum of the City of London, taking in Barbican, Clerkenwell and Farringdon, is rarely associated with quiet, stillness and serenity. And why should it be? After all, it’s here that some of the capital’s best restaurants and watering holes can be found, a place where culture and commerce set the pace. Well, in counter to that question, let us introduce this two-bedroom apartment not far from Old Street station, now on the market.

Once forming part of a warehouse, the flat, which has a footprint of 129 sqm, has been entirely overhauled by Julie Richards, a Nottinghamshire-based architect who cut her teeth under Zaha Hadid before founding her own practice in 2002. The apartment is a convincing testament of Julie’s approach, a deft exercise in the handling of light and the way it plays through space and across materials, creating, as the architect herself has said, “reflections [on] opaque surfaces, refraction through transparent layers and projections on to translucent screens”.

The considered interiors help to underscore this feeling. Nothing here shouts or demands attention, but instead, elegant clean-lined furniture and fitting lend an air of simplicity to the spaces, which become places of rest, retreat or relaxation. Colour, too, does a similar job. The limited palette here – soft grey, purest white, the hazy blue of textured glass – here doesn’t seek to compete with anything, rather to complement and to invite calmness in the process.

It isn’t hard to imagine life here: an intimate candlelit supper with friends, a night with a book on the sofa, a soak in that luxurious bathroom that almost appears to glow. Take a moment, breathe and you might just find that light is not the only thing prone to reflection.