The 95 square-meter, open-plan home is laid with herringbone timber floors and enveloped by white walls, bringing about a Parisian air that speaks to locality. Original French doors open to the terraces wrought iron balustrade, decorating this project from the outside in. Leather furnishings and silk-blend rugs add a layer of warmth and softness to the living room. To gain extra height in the space the architects have exposed the buildings concrete and steel beams and their supporting columns, injecting a trace of raw industrialism into the project.
Now, to the reason we are all here, gawping over this project – the boundless oak bookshelf. Lining almost every wall and beautifully framing openings in its path, it drives the entire apartment to bleed into a single home library, leaving room for the residence to fill its empty structure with their favoured literacies. The bedroom and living room appear to almost fold beneath the shelves, creating a clear path for it to unfold. A modern all white and stainless steel kitchen sits to the left of a mezzanine that houses a secluded reading space. Reached by a small, duel-material set of stairs, it provides a lookout to the entire apartment. Planted into the room, it intercepts the uniformity of the space and provides another ‘level’ to this playful design.
