Cité Universitaire

The apartment she grew up in, made her own.

Localisation

Paris XIVᵉ

YEAR

2014

SURFACE

115 m²

MISSION

Full reconfiguration

Photography

Edoardo de Ruggiero

APPROACH

TRANSFORM

The owner grew up in this apartment. When she inherited it, she could have sold it and started again elsewhere. She chose to stay, provided it could become hers.

It was a four-room family flat in a 1970s building: an enclosed kitchen, every room behind its own door. She lives here alone, with her African art, her guitars, her bonsai, her single malts, and her books, many of them, with more still to come.

The load-bearing kitchen wall was opened beneath a steel portal frame built like a bridge. At the heart of the apartment, a large plywood bookcase with adjustable shelves adapts as the books and objects change. It hides a passage to the bedroom. Further on, a mirrored panel extends it, then slides open onto the dressing room.

Here, nothing in the existing building was worth keeping. The project was built around her passions.