One room, but three clear territories for your dog
Your dog does not need separate rooms; he needs the single room to stop changing its meaning every hour. Pick the quietest corner, away from the front door and the radiator, and make that his permanent sleeping territory with his bed, a blanket that smells of him, and nothing stored on top of it. Feed him at the opposite end from where you chop and cook, ideally on a washable mat that only comes out at meals. Keep play in the middle ground near the sofa, so in his map of the flat the bed means rest, the mat means food, and the rug means games.
Why studios unsettle dogs at first
In a house, closed doors do much of the training for you. In a studio there is no door between the smell of your dinner and his nose, no hallway to buffer visitors arriving, and no bedroom where the lights go out and the day clearly ends. A dog new to that can drift into low-level vigilance: half-sleeping on your bed because it smells safest, shadowing you to the kettle, and reacting to every sound from the shared corridor outside. Clear territories and a predictable sequence to the day replace the missing doors with information he can rely on.
Setting up the studio around his bed corner
Place his bed where he can see you without being in your walking line between sofa, kitchen counter and bathroom door — being stepped around all evening keeps a dog restful in body only. Add a low barrier or the back of an armchair to give the corner a recognisable edge. Keep his water bowl beside the bed corner, not beside his food mat, so drinking does not pull him into the kitchen zone. If your own bed is the sofa bed, fold it away fully each morning and put his blanket back in his corner at the same moment; that daily reset teaches him which sleeping surface is actually his.
Routines that replace walls
Run the studio day in the same order: walk and toilet first, breakfast on the mat, play on the rug, then his bed corner becomes the default place while you work or cook. While your food is on, give him a filled snuffle mat or a safe chew on his own mat so he is occupied in parallel rather than hovering at the counter learning that cooking pays. Dim to the same lamp each evening and keep the last toilet trip, lights change and bedtime cue in the same sequence — in a room where you both sleep, that sequence is his signal that stimulation is finished, even if you are still reading a metre away.
The first fortnight, and guests in a small space
Expect some night-time resettling, sighing and trying your bed in the first days; guide him back to his corner calmly each time rather than making one late exception that resets the lesson. Practise short absences to the bin store or a neighbour's door so the studio predicts your return instead of your disappearance. When friends visit, keep them out of his corner entirely and let him choose whether to join the sofa group or retire — a dog who can withdraw without leaving the room copes far better with studio social life. Note what unsettles him, from the building's lift noises to a particular cooking smell, and adjust one thing at a time so you can tell what helped.
Keeping everyone who stays over on the same plan
A studio routine collapses quickly if a partner or friend feeds him from the sofa or lets him sleep across the bed because space feels informal. Agree the corner rules, the feeding mat and the bedtime sequence with anyone who regularly stays, and write them down where they can check without asking you. Through Family Sharing on KinsLe, you can give a relative you pick access to his profile, so a chosen relative can open the profile of the dog whose corner, mat and bedtime order you have taught so carefully.