Beirut and Paris based Projects Untitled designed a minimalist apartment in Paris, facing the Luxembourg gardens.
Photography
© Marwan Harmouche
Description from Projects Untitled:
A young, cosmopolitan couple acquire two concomitant apartment units of
a luminous corner building facing the Luxembourg gardens in Paris. The building
in which the apartment is located is quite old - dating from the XVII century.
The client, who wishes to transform the two units (merge them into one, and
refurbish it), are stylistically contemporary in their tastes; they express a
neat preference for white, minimalist, pure spaces.
Accordingly, the
architectural gesture is more radical here than it could be otherwise.
Historical vestiges, whose intrinsic value is arguable, are eliminated and
cleaned up, and the aging herringbone parquet replaced with natural large oak
planks. Surfaces are smoothed out and straightened; spaces are opened up,
optimized to its best favoring private spaces without compromising the social
needs, offering easy transitions & fluidity.
An american cuisine, opened
onto the living room and separated by a large, convivial wooden table,
reinforce the contemporary character of the house. Also, the apartment - a
familial 3/4 bedrooms - is conceived in a flexible manner (an actual living
room + private toilet can be turned into an eventual bedroom, with the
prospects of an aging son).
Visually, nero marquina, taj mahal and white stones
establish monochromatic contrasts, bringing visual consistency &
sophistication to the whole. Special attention, finally, is paid to the
lighting plan. Spots on rails which alternates with indirect and punctual
lighting are carefully positioned, so to mask the necessary imperfections of
ancient, soulful surfaces.
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| Plan - Before |
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| Plan - After |
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