Challenging on one side, the renovation of this small apartment also offered some obvious solutions to Septembre, the architects in charge. This reconverted industrial space is long and thin, with windows on one side only. Thus the spaces had to be distributed in such a way as for most of the rooms to have natural light. Where this was impossible, interior windows have been created in order to bring the generous light from the living area into the other spaces. The open plan living space occupies the central part of the apartment, and takes more than half of the its blueprint. It benefits from a lot of natural light coming in from the big windows of the outside wall. The kitchen is located on one side of the open space, close to the entrance. The part of the kitchen that is against the wall is painted completely black, which contrasts it strongly against the glossy white island counter in front and the cupboards on the side. This very dark color also has a shading effect, making what’s on this wall less clearly visible, as if hidden to the eye. Behind this black wall there are the bathroom and the toilet, which are separated. The bathroom communicates with the living area through a small rectangular window on the kitchen wall. The two bedrooms occupy the far end of the apartment, and are separated from the living room by a wood and glass industrial looking partition. This solution has the advantage of taking a minimum of space and most of all of bringing light from the living room to the bedrooms. The smallest bedroom which is a baby’s room also has natural light and ventilation through a real window, while the adults’ bedroom only get light and air from the living room.
The long wall is partly occupied by floor to ceiling cupboards and shelves, that offer a lot of storage space. The top compartments are reachable via a sliding black ladder that looks like a piece of decoration against the pure white background.
The space between the kitchen and living area is left bare, as if the owners had still not decided on the dining table model…
The space under the window sills is taken by low storage cabinets and by a smartly designed small desk, which serves at the same time to hide the radiator. The furniture is scarce, with an Eames lounge chair and ottoman as main pieces.
