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Upon visiting this 42-square-meter duplex on the top floor of a 19th arrondissement building, Camille was immediately seduced by its volumes, beautifully enhanced by natural light: “I immediately fell in love with the red brick wall in the main room, bathed in a lovely ray of winter sunlight. This apartment, with the existing mezzanine, gave me the impression of being in a nest.”
While the apartment was more or less ready to move in, its new owner had reservations about the garish décor and lack of storage space. After all, Camille, a designer in the leather goods and perfume division of a major luxury brand, has a (very) vast wardrobe. So he immediately turned to his friends Christophe Gourdier and Florence Vita, from the Lagoa Architecture agency, to help him find new storage solutions while preserving the existing double height.
The duo undertook a complete renovation of the property, starting by relocating the shower room, previously located opposite the entrance and particularly poorly laid out, to the extension of the existing staircase. The new shower room is housed in a compact wood-frame volume clad in translucent polymethyl methacrylate, inspired by the work of artist James Turrell, which transforms the shower room into a source of light in its own right thanks to lighting built into the double wall. More affordable and easier to work with than glass, PMMA, with its slightly brown tint, also subtly diffuses natural light inside this small windowless space.
Lagoa Architecture then devised a series of storage units in the upper part of the apartment for Camille’s vast wardrobe. Not wanting to increase the floor area of the mezzanine at the risk of encroaching on the high ceilings and overloading the space, the architects decided to make only a portion of the closets accessible from the bedroom, while a ladder allows access to the suspended storage units above the study and shower room. In this way, they rose to the challenge of creating substantial closet space, while at the same time accentuating the volume of the apartment. With its soft, enveloping color palette, Camille’s “nest” was thus ready to accommodate him and his clothes.
