#PR-481
Two-level apartment · Contemporary
Design project for an apartment, 168 m²
Apartment · 168 m² · Concept
About the project
A two-level apartment of 168 m² for a couple who run a business from home. A ceiling height of 5.5 metres made it possible to build a cantilevered mezzanine over the living room, twenty square metres that the plan did not have, and to put a study for two up there. The double-height space below stayed open to its full height.
A sand-beige palette, with colour arriving in single notes: terracotta in the dining area, olive in the study and the bedroom, coral in the bathroom. Concept design.
Client request
The couple asked for a contemporary interior and two proper workplaces: not a desk in the corner of the bedroom, and not one shared table used in turn, but two places where both can sit at once, each on the phone and each with their own screen. At the same time the living areas were not to shrink to corridors: they still needed a kitchen-living room for entertaining, a children's room, a bedroom with a dressing room and a second bathroom, and a utility room. The 148 m² of the lower level would not stretch to all of it.
Challenge
The reserve was found overhead. A height of 5.5 metres allowed another level to be built, but not at any price: a full floor slab would have swallowed the double-height space and turned the main room into an ordinary living room. The answer was a cantilever: the mezzanine bears on one side only and hangs over part of the living room, leaving the height by the window open. A structure like this is calculated separately, so a specialist firm designed it while the studio handled the approvals with the building management company.
The second question was compositional. Twenty square metres suspended in the volume of the room are in view from below at all times and could not be hidden. That meant the mezzanine had to read as part of the interior: the line of the balustrade, a staircase with open treads, lighting that works for the upper and the lower level alike. The project passed every approval, with the building management company and with the local authority.
Concept
The base is a warm sand-beige: the walls, the parquet, storage built in to match the walls, tall doors that fill the full height of the opening. Everything that can be taken into a flat plane has been; the lighting is concealed in coves and gives a soft light from above instead of a pendant in every room. Against that background colour works as an accent, and almost always on the furniture: terracotta chairs in the dining area, the tan leather of the bench in the entrance hall, olive in the study, the children's room and the bedroom, coral in the bathroom and on the rug beside the child's bed.
The scenarios are separated vertically. Downstairs everything is shared: the kitchen, the table, the sofa, guests, children. Upstairs is for work and for quiet: two places at a long worktop, and a few steps away a sofa with a chaise and a television wall, where the couple move in the evening with the games console. The loggias add a third mode: off the living room, a worktop along the window with a view over the city; off the bedroom, a daybed by the full-height glazing.
Result
Out of 148 m² on the lower level and 20 m² of mezzanine came an apartment where two jobs, a child and entertaining do not get in each other's way. The study gained a level of its own, the living room kept its full height, and the extra twenty square metres came not out of the living area but out of air that would otherwise have gone unused.
The structure was calculated as a separate project, and the approvals went through the building management company and the local authority. Next come the technical documentation and construction.
Trust metrics
148 m²
lower level
Floor area from the concept design schedule
20 m²
mezzanine
An added cantilevered level with the study
5.5 m
ceiling height
Double-height space over the kitchen-living room
Floor plan of the project “Design project for an apartment, 168 m²”
- 1Entrance hall — 21 m²
- 3Kitchen-living room — 51 m²
- 4Bedroom — 17 m²
- 5Master bathroom — 8 m²
- 6Walk-in wardrobe off the bedroom — 11 m²
- 7Children's room — 18 m²
- 8Shared bathroom — 5 m²
- 9Utility room — 2 m²
- 10Loggia 1 — 5 m²
- 11Ventilation room 1 — 2 m²
- 12Loggia 2 — 5 m²
- 13Ventilation room 2 — 2 m²
- 14Electrical switch cupboard — 1 m²
- 1Study — 20 m²
Zones of the project “Design project for an apartment, 168 m²”
01 Rooms
Entrance hall
Fitted wardrobes in beige lacquer run along the wall from floor to ceiling and merge with it: outdoor clothes, shoes and bags go inside and nothing shows outside. A full-height mirror and a bench in tan leather are the only bright note at the entrance. A round perforated wall light gives a soft, diffused glow.
02 Rooms
Corridor
The passage is made part of the interior rather than a technical stretch of route. A round table stands in the arched niche, with a lit display cabinet beside it. Storage here is again taken into the plane of the wall, so the corridor reads wider than it is.
03 Rooms
Kitchen-living room
The main volume of the apartment: a double-height space running the full height, with an open-tread staircase to the mezzanine. A stone island with a pale pattern anchors the kitchen area, and the dining area is marked out by terracotta chairs and globe pendants over the table. The living room has a pale corner sofa, a round rug and an arc floor lamp; above it hangs a sculptural chandelier of white rings, sized for the full height of the room.
04 Rooms
Loggia 1
A long white worktop runs the length of the window: a place to work, to have breakfast or to go through papers. Two olive armchairs turn towards the city. Roman blinds control the light without closing off the view.
05 Rooms
Study on the mezzanine
The twenty square metres for which the extra level was built. A long worktop for two, a shelving unit and office equipment: two workplaces that do not compete with each other. The other half is given over to an olive sofa with a chaise and a television wall, where the family watch films and play on the console in the evening.
06 Rooms
Children's room
The bed stands by the window, and along the opposite wall are an olive sofa, a round table with poufs and an oval mirror. A coral rug sets the play centre of the room. The wall bars with rings are placed in a free corner so that they interfere with neither the desk nor the bed.
07 Rooms
Shared bathroom
Marble with green veining sets the tone of the whole room, and brass fittings support it. A coral countertop basin is the only contrast and the main accent. The bath and the glazed shower are kept apart, so the bathroom works both for a child's bedtime and for guests.
08 Rooms
Master bedroom
Behind the headboard is an amber panel, and it is also the main source of colour in the room. Opposite it runs a storage wall with the television: everything is taken into the fronts and nothing projects. An olive rug, an oval mirror and a window over the city complete the set.
09 Rooms
Walk-in wardrobe off the bedroom
Glazed display cabinets keep things visible and in order at the same time. A dressing table with a full-height oval mirror turns the dressing room into a room for getting ready rather than a store cupboard. The bench is there to dress sitting down.
10 Rooms
Master bathroom
Marble, a vanity unit with a basin, nothing surplus. A glazed shower with two heads, one overhead rain shower and one handheld. Glass instead of a curtain keeps the room whole.
11 Rooms
Loggia 2
A daybed by the full-height window is the whole programme of this loggia. A place for coffee in the morning and for reading in the afternoon, two steps from the bed and with no way through to the shared part of the apartment.
12 Rooms
Utility room
A room of its own instead of appliances pushed into the bathrooms. A washer-dryer column, a sink, shelves with baskets for sorting. All the housekeeping of the apartment is gathered in one place and closed behind a door.
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