This 550-square-foot apartment is on the seventh floor of a building on Paris’s Boulevard Saint-Martin. “The owner, a visual artist and doctor, is an unusual character with a singular perspective,” says architect Pauline Borgia. “He wanted a pied-à-terre that was both rejuvenating and dynamic, something appropriate for this district famous for its cafés, theaters, and clubs. He also wanted a kitchen/living room, a bathroom, a guest bedroom, an office, and more.” A lot to ask for in 550 square feet. Pauline was starting with a series of charmless maids’ rooms to which she introduced curves to work the space like “modeling clay” and free the unit from its existing constraints. The first partition, to the right of the entrance, separates the bathroom from the kitchen, creating a sensual interplay of volumes. The guest bedroom is at the back of the unit. Instead of a proper door, the room is closed off with a large, dramatic curtain in deep blue velvet, a nod to David Lynch’s film Blue Velvet.
Another curved partition separates the bedroom from the study with an organically shaped opening that evokes a stylized entrance to a cave. “The concave partition and the rounded opening make it possible to integrate a long L-shaped desk that slips into the curve,” Pauline says. It’s an architectural trick that also serves to visually enlarge the bedroom. “Neither space feels small when you’re in them—instead both are comfortable.” This treatment of space gives the apartment a unique quality that Pauline emphasizes by playing with its different materials. “Because when it comes to squeezing four distinct spaces into three ordinary volumes, it’s the interplay of materials, along with the curved partitions, that defines each area without ever being gratuitous.”
The 550-square-foot apartment has an abundance of colors and a variety of materials, yet none seem gratuitous. Pauline knows what she’s doing. She started with a palette of pastels—pink, violet, and beige. For her, color served “as a soft material.” While the walls are off-white and the ceiling white, she introduces a play of shadows and reflections to create a “cocoon” feel and uses different textures to visually multiply the apartment’s different zones. The final result creates different volumes and perspectives, as well as connections between spaces through elements, like concrete running from one room to the next, and stainless-steel fixtures found in both the kitchen and the bathroom, with additional stainless-steel details found throughout the unit. When the eye wanders, there are reminders of different materials and colors. Pauline’s design has a way of enlarging the space that almost works like a contemporary trompe-l’œil.
While curves and color give a unique style to the project and at the same time add a remarkable softness, in the cave-office the design is bolder. The waxed concrete floor, green up to middle of the wall, contrasts with an intense purple that accentuates the boxy feel. The horizontal bands of color, lit from the side by daylight, widen the space—in contrast with the softened, Dali-esque angles of the opening. The apartment’s furniture includes pieces designed by the owner, such as the dining room table, and vintage pieces like the cabinet from a dentist’s office in the kitchen. From the sofa in the living room to the tubular chair in the study, everything is rounded and sensual. A metal wall lamp sits like a sculpture atop a yellow USM cabinet. “Metal works well in small spaces because it reflects,” Pauline says. “Stainless steel, shiny chrome—it’s a great play of mirrors.”
This apartment was first published by AD France.
