CDS

The project involves the renovation of an apartment located in a typical Milanese
casa di ringhiera (literally “railing house”).
The design process has turned the pre-existing distribution upside down,
reorganizing the functions in a more organic way: at the lower floor a service area
(bathroom, laundry / guest room), in the attic floor the main functions of the house.
The creation of a small terrace overlooking the beautiful internal courtyard is also
part of the design approach, a moment of openness and contact with the outside
that floods the new kitchen with natural light.
The project becomes an opportunity to restore order in the physical space but
also in the mental one: the space’s design was accompanied by a long process of
decluttering and selection of the many objects, furnishings, paintings and lamps
that crowded the house more out of habit than out of choice.
If it is true that a house holds the most intimate aspects of people and their
memories, a renovation project becomes a key moment to understand what you
want to keep when you are about to experience a new space.
The desire to design more orderly and rational spaces was achieved with the idea
of giving a frame more suitable and contemporary to the pre-existing elements, to
objects intimately linked to the customer’s personal history.
Classic materials such as Vienna-straw, terrazzo, marble and parquet, constitute
an abacus of lived and comforting sensations, and have been used as a basis to
reinterpret them in a contemporary way.
Specifically, the bathroom floor reinterprets in a geometric key the classic Milanese
terrazzo tiles , the custom-made Vienna-straw sliding doors (which divide the
living room from the other rooms) recall the Thonet chairs’ straw collected over
the years by the client, the marble of the bespoke kitchen island matches the
existing kitchen worktop, a very dark and elegant essence was chosen for the new
parquet, some vintage wooden furniture has been maintained but lightened with
a monochromatic painting, new lamps with essential silhouettes find their place
among other ones with a 70s and 80s flavor.
Classic and contemporary elements come together and balance out in a game of
references that aims to enriches the context of the apartment.