Rue René Boulanger, Paris 10

One of the architects' stakes has been to preserve its classic Haussmannian character, to enhance it and to reconfigure the apartment in the most total respect of the original identity with targeted and controlled architectural interventions. By rethinking the plan, the architects break down space, give it back natural light, adapt to new ways of life and uses.

This is the restructuring of a Paris apartment allocated to a couple of architects. Located in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, in a typical Parisian building that once housed the boxes of the nearby theatre. Today the boxes have been mostly replaced by apartments. When acquiring this apartment, the owners expressed the desire to rearrange the spaces. In the past, the apartment had undergone a number of modifications and partitions for the use by a single woman. The existing apartment consisted of a large entrance, a small living room, a bedroom on the streetside, an oversized kitchen, and a storage room. By rethinking the plan, the architects break down space, give it back natural light, adapt to new ways of life and uses. The intervention takes into account changes in the couple's life. The apartment now offers an entrance with generous birch closets, a flexible and multiple room (acting as library/office/game room), a living room bathed in light whose kitchen shelf spaces bring new uses and for which the issue of the open kitchen raised many questions over the aesthetic dimension of the servants' quarter. The kitchen is treated like a furniture all in birch. In this project, the architects reinterpreted the idea of the Scandinavian sideboard. The upper chambers usually recessed are aligned with the lower elements to form a single plane. The height adapts to the size of its users. The credence, more important than usual, allows the wall to express itself so that the owners can position frames freely. The treatment of the kitchen alters the conventional aesthetics while being functional and equipped. From the living room, one can gaze across the vestibule and notice a lack of lighting. Single area of colour A colour: India Yellow edited by Farrow and Ball contrasts the space and makes transition between the old and the new, the common and intimate spaces, the spaces for days and for nights. This fault leads on to the matrimonial room, the small office and the bathroom. This is the part of the apartment refurbished in its entirety. The bathroom and the toilets are one. The glazed shower screen in the floor-to-ceiling wall, the continuity of the mosaics, the large frontal mirror and the fluorescent lamp give depth and lighten this small space. And make it a functional, pleasant bathroom of which every square centimetre has been exploited. The fault opens frontally on to the master bedroom. It has been moved to the couryard side. There is a certain intimacy, comfort and serenity with wood as the sole intervening material. A birch wall separates the storage space as well as the laundry. They are covered with a clear matte varnish preserving the original material while protecting it from the daily domestic use.
The wooden panels used in each living room bring a unity.