Cabin Fever
-
"Rather than trying to fit the furniture into the apartment, we decided to fit the apartment into the furniture," says architect Antoine Santiard. "However absurd this may seem, it immediately alleviated all the constraints linked to laying out tight spaces." The wool curtain dividing the space was made by a local company called Arpin. The custom track is by G-Rail.
-
Four brothers own this apartment located within a larger building and use it for family vacations as well as a rental. The clients were familiar with H2O's work (namely the Front and Back Apartment and Chatou) and enlisted the Paris-based firm to refurbish the space.The original apartment consisted of five cramped rooms squeezed into 592 square feet. The clients wanted to maximize the living space, add storage, make the most of views of the surrounding mountainous terrain, and fit in eight beds and two bathrooms.
-
To free up space, beds, shelves, and a sofa appear to be built into the wall. To accommodate the gentle curve of the "unit," the architects selected birch plywood. A large window is opposite of the beds.
-
While the architects had license to revive the interior, they couldn't touch any of the existing structure, walls, or services. Construction couldn't take place when anyone was occupying the building, which left them with a two-month window to renovate. To streamline building, many of the parts were prefabricated offsite.
-
Santiard says that there was a lot of investment in the French ski industry in the 1960s and 1970s and many of those buildings have deteriorated. The city of Les Menuires is in the middle of a five-year plan to modernize its resorts and offers some incentives to rehab older buildings if they meet certain requirements—having a lamp for each bed, a certain mattress quality, ample storage, and a well-equipped kitchen, among others. "The city really pushed us to make a little chalet inside this massive 70s building," says Santiard.
-
Panels slide open to connect the spaces, or closed for privacy. The bed beneath the window is by Swiss company Bico folds into a couch during the day.
-
Here's the room with the partitions closed.
-
These bunk beds are located just past the wall shown in the previous slide.
-
The desk was designed by H2O and has a prime view of the snowy alps.
-
Here's the new kitchen. H2O designed the table and benches, whose seats pop up to reveal hidden storage.
Categories:
More
Kids' Room Renovation
A baby's arrival is cause for celebration—and for many, it's also a time to confront limited living space.
Kids' Rooms We Love
Kids' rooms often tread transitionary territory when it comes to modern design. What might be good for a five-month-old may not work well to when he or she is five years old.
Shelf Life
Though he appears to live alone, this graphically inclined Parisian commissioned an apartment that deftly houses his many roommates—scores of beloved comics—as well.
Murphy's Law
Flashback to the early 1900s: After trying to woo an opera singer, but having to abide by the strict moral code of a woman entering a man's bedroom, William Lawrence Murphy invented the Murphy Bed,…
Add comment