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Designer Ekhi Busquet’s apartment 73 m² in Marseille 73 m² Marseille, France 17 500 € Contemporary classic Retro-contemporary Ekhi Busquet

This Home Tour is from Sloft Edition 02.

 

Marseille is designer Ekhi Busquet’s favorite city, slap bang in the middle of the two southern landmarks of her life: to the west, her birthplace, and to the east, the place where she spent most of her childhood. The Mediterranean Basin, a cultural melting pot with its distinctive light and colors, represents an inexhaustible source of inspiration for her. In the first arrondissement, the historic heart of the city, which also happens to be "at the junction of two worlds", she explains—the Cours Julien on one side, with its creators and bustling atmosphere, and the neighborhood of La Plaine on the other, a historic landmark for the Phocaean city demonstrations—, Ekhi unearthed a rare gem. She fell head over heels for this apartment on the top floor of an old building erected in 1880. "All sliced up, fragmented, with so many nooks and crannies and in such a sorry state", she laughs, but a dual-aspect apartment "whose façade is endowed with series of three high windows, typical of this area, that allow the light to flood in. And the wind." Yes, natural ventilation is very much needed here in the south. "It works wonders!", she remarks, laughing. And then she was told she could also buy the attic... Everything she needed to create a cool, relaxing home was right there, the perfect place to enjoy simplicity (and work on occasion, as well), the physical representation of Ekhi’s world.

 

So what next? A clean slate, everything was torn down, the walls, the doors, the whole lot: "We broke the rules of what a traditional home layout should look like", she clarifies. The space is open, from the entrance to the kitchen, everything can be taken in all at once. The bedroom is a simple, cozy cabin of sorts, tucked away under the roof beams. We should point out that the apartment can also be used as a showroom, so the subtle usage of space flirts with scenography at times. The walls are white, except for a terracotta-colored one, inspired by the surrounding rooftops and featuring a delicate arched opening. The floors are light and continuous. Only objects, skillfully dotted around, add touches of color to the space. The natural light does all the rest. “It’s sublime here”, says the designer. "We made sure that the sun never hits an angle. It glides through. It’s so beautiful and brings the place to life." And then there’s the terrace, an extremely rare feature in these parts. It was created from scratch... or nearly so. Two centuries ago, a small extension was added to the lower floor. "We were able to use its roof to build an outdoor space." In the evening, seated under the pergola that delicately filters the sun’s setting rays, doing (almost) nothing is quite the treat.