In a 1900 factory turned into accommodation, This small loft type apartment It occupies the fourth and last floor. The height under the vaulted ceiling of this space – which is sustained by imposing metal beams – is impressive: nothing more and nothing less than 4 meters. «It may seem gigantic at the beginning, but divided into two heights of 2 meters, as is the case, it is a bit tight. Architectural games in the style of Escher are needed to overcome this problem of the high heights and the low subdivisions. Create interesting but complex spaces,» says the architect and interior designer Elisabeth Hertzfeld, who had to deal with a cube full of light. View, but divided into several small spaces in a mixture of lines, vaults, beams and partitions. “I asked myself: 'How can we return to that first impression, in which Do you just think that the small apartment is big, beautiful and bright? '” And starting with the huge windows … we can say that they are undoubtedly great; Thanks to them, it becomes a well that floods space. But divided into tiles, crossbars and uprights, beautiful with the library and its angular architecture, it became a challenging project.
An softened industrial style
In the midst of these straight lines, the decorator brings roundness thanks to a large and soft curtain, which breaks the rectangles with their undulations and covers the bookseller in a wide arch that wraps the sofa. The curtain also appeases the bookseller, who, although it responds to an important need for storage, «must be able to disappear as if by magic so that we can find a more zen space.» The monumental library extends to the small department's kitchen area. As the different spaces are very intertwined, the eye can see them all at once. Elisabeth Hertzfeld chose Arce's wood to create a continuity of ways as possible in a kind of positive/negative investment of tones. The luminosity and veins of the wood respond to the whiteness of the soils, the curtains and the varnished furniture, as well as to the bronze green color of the waxed tiles and to the green-bronze cement of the belief, the windows, the metal beams and even the glass tiles of the bathroom in a lighter tone.