With these characteristics, the proposal seeks the harmonization of tones and textures, with a tendency towards white tones, which enhance the volume of the spaces, together with wood and brick, and composition of ephemeral elements that do not alter circulation. and the mobility of the spaces but respond to the expected program.
Description of project by Studio Phaar
There was this reassuring height and these bricks, too present, this ground going down the stairs, insistent, then this restrained first floor, immutable. A score to harmonise, to define, to contain moments in shapes, volumes and textures. A movement, an arrangement of emptiness.
PRESENCE
A stone’s throw from the Parc Monceau, across the avenue, behind an elegant porch, we discovered an attractive planted courtyard, surrounded by six haussmannian floors. It led us to the backyard, where stand two lower constructions of brick facades with zinc roofing. Before turning in to housing, these seven units were stables and then garages. Each apartment has a ground floor entrance which gives on to it’s flowered terrace.
EXISTING
The dwelling is north-west oriented. It’s a 42sqm (452sq.ft) split into two floors. A groundfloor of 27sqm (291sq.ft) and an upper level of 15sqm (161sq.ft). The ground floor includes an empty living room 18sqm (194sq.ft), an open kitchen 7sqm (75sq.ft) with a tiny cellar 2sqm (22sq.ft ) under the stairs. On first floor, a small bathroom 3sqm (32sq.ft), an independant toilet and a bedroom under a sloping ceiling 10sqm (108sq.ft).
The two separated levels restrain the possibility to transform completely the plan. The main functions are already set up and we have to compose around the existing organization. Apart from the cellar, there isn’t any storage.
On the ground floor, a dark red brick wall coexists with a travertin textured stone as ground surface, under a bricks arches ceiling high of 3,20m (10,5 ft). The same pinkish floor carries on up the stairs and continues on to the upper level. The new project will have to fit with this colour shade.
To complement the existing features, the intervention will have to integrate new ones in this already narrow duplex volume. The owners wanted an additional bedroom, a separated washroom and storages for each space.
The new project must be adaptable on two scenarios: accommodate 3 individuals simultaneously or 1 couple and 2 occasional guests. The multi-purposes of the new space will have to be simple, fluent, flexible and seamless. Multiplication of features should not reduce volumes in their perception although they will be physically shrunk.
PROJECT
Colors and tones are attuned, spaces’ morphology highlighted. The strong presence of the ground surface is put in resonance with a birch plywood with incisive edges, sculpting space and powdering the whole of delicate pink shades. Backgrounds are pure white, allowing wood shapes on front and emphasising the bricks’ relief rather than their color.
The kitchen area is raised, distinctly delimited by a platform and – like a calm sea – a stainless steel worktop flushing the birch grain. All residual spaces are invested by storage, benches and movable coffers. The kitchen floor conceals a bench, footboard and a double size moving bed.
The underside of the staircase is taken care of, transformed into a secondary bathroom, revealed by a monumental sliding door, replacing the hidden and narrow cellar.
What remained to be done, was to find a way to generate a second bedroom that should disappear on command, to leave a free space for dining room or create a working area as well as a place to relax. This ephemeral room had to exist without altering movements, circulation or functionality of the others elementary uses of the apartment.
To achieve that, a curved alcove takes part in the composition, a curtain of soft ripples, an additive of roundness to the rigour of the wooden straight lines.
The alcove wraps, isolates, frames. It delimits and at the same time deletes the border of the functions. It‘s the absence and presence of a sixth room.
On first floor landing, the bathroom, immaculate, minimal, in order to exploit every last available square centimetre, the sensation of a fluid and open volume.
Following the same logic, the main bedroom, with no less restrictive measurements, has a maximised storage space and a large desk. The refined geometry of the furniture plays with the existing sloping ceiling, seeking to restore symmetry, orientation and legibility to a room initially formless.
This is how they constrained the space to better reveal it, of an inhabited furniture and a few meters of fabric, the alcove of monceau.
