‘Give me some surprises’ is perhaps not the most common of client requests, but the owner of this Parisian home put an unusual amount of trust in her designers. The result is something special, and more than a little unexpected. ‘We really wanted to have fun and were lucky that she shared that spirit,’ says Hugo Vince of the lawyer who, having worked with him and fellow Atelier HA founder Adèle Nourry on two previous properties, was willing to wholeheartedly take that leap.
A former garage in Saint-Cloud – a residential suburb in the western outskirts of Paris – the home in question was vast (300 square metres with ceilings in excess of seven metres high), so the first task was creating a more liveable scale within that shell. ‘We wanted it to feel like the room is giving you a hug,’ says Hugo, who describes how a mezzanine level was added, which lowers the ceiling height over the kitchen and creates a control-room-like office for the owner, who doesn’t like to be too separated from the life of the house when working.
Hugo and Adèle also chose textured, linen-look wallpaper to wrap the lower section of the main living area and visually help reduce the volume of the space. Scale may have been an issue, but ambition certainly was not. The only ‘surprise’ that had to be negotiated was Hugo and Adèle’s desire for a purple, poured-concrete floor.
A more neutral colour was selected in the end, but a purple rug in the living room keeps the palette alive, and tiles have been added around the edge of the floor – ‘like a swimming pool’, says Hugo – to soften what could have been quite an industrial aesthetic.
The kitchen and fireplace, custom-designed by Atelier HA and covered with silver leaf by artisan Antonin Lamoot, are the most instantly recognisable nod to the studio’s love of the Space Age, theatrical and filmic (there are other references around the home to movies such as Pulp Fiction and The Fifth Element), but there are many inspirations at play here.
A mix of furniture that includes vintage finds, high-gloss lacquer and mirrored surfaces evokes the glamour of a 1960s New York speakeasy crossed with the decadence of the 1970s club scene.
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Terracotta red is a signature colour throughout the home. It was chosen for the client’s previous house and she loved it. Her ex-husband was not a fan, so it was an easy decision to make it prominent in this scheme, defining the more private spaces of this home, from her office to the bedroom with its vast platform bed.
‘Life can sometimes be intense, so we were really happy to bring her a space like this, full of lightness and fun,’ says Hugo. ‘When her mother initially visited the finished project, she said it was the first time she had felt well in her daughter’s home,’ recalls Adèle. ‘That’s such a lovely thing to hear.’ It may be a little off-the-wall, but this interior is, it seems, just the right mix of comfort and crazy. @atelierha
