Vladyslava

Building a living van from scratch

Private Site • Freelance

Dec 2025 - Mar 2026 • 3 mos

Case: Compact Camper Interior - Rounded Forms & Controlled Light The Brief A van conversion project: kitchen, sleeping area, and storage compressed into a few square meters. The challenge wasn't fitting furniture - it was making a small volume feel calm rather than cramped. Process Built the full layout from scratch in SketchUp - kitchen block, overhead cabinets, storage benches, sleeping platform - then moved into D5 Render for lighting and material development. Iterated through multiple lighting passes (warm tungsten vs. cool daylight) before settling on the final scheme. Rounded Edges in a Small Volume Sharp corners read as obstacles in tight spaces - they catch the eye and visually shrink the room. Every cabinet edge, handle, and counter corner is softened. The eye glides instead of stopping, and the whole interior reads as one continuous surface rather than a stack of boxes.In a space this size, that single decision does more for perceived volume than any material choice. The Blue Dark navy is a risky move in small interiors- conventional wisdom says deep, saturated colors close a room in. It didn't happen in this case. The blue sits dark enough to feel grounded and intentional, but stays cool and slightly desaturated, which keeps it from absorbing light the way a true navy or black would. Paired with warm oak accents and a backlit concrete panel, the cabinetry recedes instead of advancing- it frames the space rather than filling it. Indirect Light No single bright source. Light comes from concealed strips under the cabinets and along the backsplash — it washes the walls instead of hitting them. This removes hard shadows, which matter enormously in a small box: hard shadows fragment a space, soft bounced light unifies it. The result is a glow that makes the interior feel larger at night than it does in daylight render comparisons.