Delavegacanolasso for Tini Devises a Modular Showcase Garage for a Madrid Home

60 days. That’s the length of time Madrid-based modular home company Tini promises construction and installation of its units, which are designed by Ignacio de la Vega and Pilar Cano-Lasso, both also of architecture firm Delavegacanolasso. That estimate includes customization, and although there are two standard sizes for Tini modules—253 and 366 square feet—many clients combine them to meet their specific spatial needs.

For a Madrid residence, two units were joined to create a 560-square-foot showcase garage for the family’s 1948 Porsche 356 and 1959 Austin Healey 3000. The architects customized the modules to accommodate six lindens on the verdant site. “We adapted the width and length of both structures, so we had no need to touch the trees,” de la Vega explains. “As a result, from the first day the pavilion looked as if it had been there for years, totally integrated in the garden.”

The pavilion’s frame is weathering steel, while the 29.5-foot-long facade is composed of a trio of manually operated sliding doors with vertically oriented 2 ¾-inch-wide pine slats that allow light and air into the space. Interior plywood boards were painted a dramatic matte black to highlight the vintage cars, while the floor is a treated prefab concrete slab. The architects set down a pair of black Barcelona chairs and a custom pine side table to create a lounge area within the pavilion. Though less than 200 feet from the main residence, the garage feels light-years away.

LASSA Architects Creates a Curvaceous Concrete Structure in Methoni, Greece

LASSA Architects leverages a lightweight, low-cost, and reusable foam formwork to create a curvaceous concrete structure for a private residence with public gallery in Methoni, Greece. Take a look at the making of this eye-catching build below.

LASSA conceived a structure with an aerodynamic X-shape massing that creates a series of protected courtyards—one in each wing. To execute the organically curved form in concrete, the architects hatched a fabrication strategy at once elaborate yet efficient.

Theo Sarantoglou Lalis and Dora Sweijd, co-founding principals of the London- and Brussels-based firm, ideated a digitally designed polystyrene-foam formwork that could be partially pre-assembled in sections, in just a handful of days, at a local warehouse. Prior to transporting the formwork to the site, they labeled each piece and included a positive or negative notch on either side.

After excavating the building footprint, four team members installed—in just half a day—a laser-cut-MDF shelf to guide placement of the foam formwork.

Once delivered on-site, the lightweight formwork sections were placed atop the shelf, assembled like a Byzantine puzzle with plastic screws, and anchored by a support structure made of locally sourced wood—a system flexible enough to achieve the serpentine shape.

Concrete was poured in stages over the formwork to create the continuous, rippled facade, which extends some 400 linear feet.

After fabrication was complete, the foam formwork was reused as the house’s insulation. An aerial view reveals how the completed structure anchors into the gently sloping olive grove.

Matte-white powder-coated steel steps lead from the kitchen’s gravel courtyard to the rooftop terrace; X- and Y-shape concrete legs support the marble bench seats.

Futuristic yet grounded, the dwelling’s undulating white facade, as viewed from the southeast, engages with its agrarian surroundings—as does the 344-square-foot pool offering panoramic views.

The south terrace is accessible via a 17-by-9-foot sliding glass door, constructed of three panels that recede into the wall, resulting in a boundless, indoor-outdoor volume.

Accessed through a powder-coated laser-cut steel screen door, the gallery features satin-finish terrazzo floors and marble skirting that uphold the blanched aesthetic. In lieu of conventional lighting fixtures, a perimeter trench containing a flexible LED strip was cast into the roof slab.

Dispatch from Cairo: Omar Chakil Transforms Ancient Materials into Modern Marvels

Not so anymore. Chakil reclaims the material’s innate beauty with his collection Suite Anima (after Animism, the belief that objects possess a distinct spiritual essence). It’s a sculptural and deeply soulful furniture series comprising seating, lighting, tabletop accessories, and more—all carved by hand bar Naughty Cleopatra, a CNC-cut tub that emerged from a single piece of stone, and Thebes, a dining table. “I want to set an example that if you want to work with your local things, you can,” he explains. “The idea was to find an emblematic Egyptian mineral and use it to create contemporary objects that would build bridges between the past and present, craft and design, earthly and ethereal, East and West.” 

“The stone has a soothing, healing quality,” Chakil continues. “It transmits light beautifully through its wax-like texture.” Highlights include two neotenic floor lamps that glow from bulbs within, and the Thebes infinity-loop–shape table with twin holes in the top—resembling spiral coin wishing wells—that represent energy moving continuously and endlessly. There are also honed, matte-finish stools, oil diffusers, globular sconces, organically shaped seating, and more. The 22 pieces debuted at Cairo’s collectible design gallery Le Lab this Spring, commissioned by Le Lab founder Rasheed Kamel. Since the opening of Le Lab’s doors to in October 2021, Kamel has collaborated with myriad Middle Eastern talents from furniture designer Georges Mohasseb to the sculptor Khaled Zaki.

A Look Inside the Homes and Studios of Artisans and Product Designers

Artisans and product designers take a hands-on approach to their home/studios.

Alex Gabriels

Words: Stephen Treffinger

Materiality is at the heart of Alex Gabriels’s one-of-a-kind pottery pieces, made from earthy red, off-white, or black clay that shows quirks and imperfections from her touch. The same can be said of the Kampenhout, Belgium, home the ceramicist shares with her husband, Philippe de Ceuster, and their three sons. Like her vessels, the house, though a new-build designed by Bart Lens and Thijs Prinsen of Studio Lens°Ass Architects, has a timeless quality. The use of warm and durable materials such as brick and concrete form a modern take on wabi-sabi, while the striking brise-soleil facade was inspired by the Modhera Sun Temple in India.

Milla Novo

Words: Marc Heldens

When textile artist Milla Novo and her partner, Nigel Nowotarski, first encountered a neo-Gothic monastery in Bennebroek, the Netherlands, that was being redeveloped into residences, the structure’s 2,000-square-foot former chapel had been languishing on the market. “No one wanted to buy this apartment because of the unconventional layout,” she says. But where others saw drawbacks, Novo saw only a blank slate and abundant possibilities, including 20-foot ceilings ideal for executing oversize wall hangings for designer-clients such as Piet Boon and Jan des Bouvrie. She enlisted Amsterdam firm Standard Studio to create comfortable, functional interiors that would respect the monastic atmosphere—all the better to showcase works that honor weaving techniques from her ancestral Chile.

Maximilian Eicke

Words: Stephen Treffinger

During quarantine, German-born Eicke used the time to build a home for his family in Bali. Named Dukuh Haus (dukuh is Indonesian for “hamlet”), the structure incorporates weighty materials like steel, teak, volcanic stone, and marble to result in a solid yet wonderfully open environment. The dwelling is actually a grouping of five buildings placed around a courtyard and pool, a configuration that allowed Eicke—who now alternates between Asia and his Hamptons, New York, residence—to play with different materials and styles. He designed nearly every detail, from the furniture to the flatware, and uses the property as a product incubator, eventually putting favorite and viable pieces into production.

MUT Design

Words: Stephen Treffinger

Pushing boundaries is the modus operandi of MUT Design and its founders, Alberto Sánchez and Eduardo Villalón, known for redefining familiar objects. The partners in work and life applied that same sensibility to their home in a 200-year-old building in Valencia, Spain, creating an open, obstacle-free space centered around a light well—a feature that brightened the dark conditions and blurred the lines between indoors and out. Every part is visible from the others—bathroom included (ahem). Furnishings are a playful mix of vintage, pieces from favorite designers, and MUT creations and prototypes for brands such as Expormim and Pulpo. Hearty brick, timber, and cement tile throughout impart a Mediterranean feel, while objects found during their travels lend an international edge.

i29 Reinvents a Historic Canal House in Amsterdam

The archetypal Amsterdam canal house constitutes much of the Dutch city’s residential landscape. Dating to the 17th century, these four- or five-story waterfront row houses were conceived as hybrids: part living space, part warehouse storage for goods transported along the canals. They were built sturdily of wood and masonry construction with heavy beams, i29 co-founder Joeren Dellensen explains, “which is why they still exist.”

Albeit not always in the greatest shape. Take this compact 1675 house near Amstelveld square. Though designated a state monument, it had fallen into ruin before new owners initiated a meticulous two-year restoration and update. “From the start we knew i29 had to be involved in the project, to instill their out-of-the-box, serene, and perfect design,” notes the client, who first hired the firm nine years ago to craft an “invisible kitchen” for the family’s Paris apartment that was entirely concealed behind sliding wall panels imitative of decorative molding.

Here, architectural interventions were strictly limited by mandates protecting heritage houses. “We were not allowed to demolish any walls,” co-founder Jasper Jansen says, noting that the project was a collaborative effort among firm members. “And we couldn’t build any, either, even though very few existed in the space.”

Instead, color performs the role of spatial demarcation. “We used color as a tool to expose the architectural shell to the fullest and to make interventions that define functions,” Dellensen notes, adding that the classic hues chosen “are in sync with the monumental quality of the building.” Complementary blues, greens, and grays are muted and somewhat smoky, contrasting with swaths of crisp white.

Related Post: i29 & Chris Collaris Evoke High Contrast for a Summer Residence in Vinkeveen, the Netherlands

The 1,240-square-foot interior of the Amsterdam canal house, adjoining a rear garden, offers long sight lines and elements of delightful surprise. A steep, curving stairway, every bit original, connects the three full floors plus three intermediating half levels. The entry opens into a cozy seating alcove with wide steps down to the ground floor, which had to be lowered for foundation repairs. Occupying the majority of this level is the eat-in kitchen, where custom oak millwork is coupled with chairs by Naoto Fukasawa and lighting pendants by Ludovica and Roberto Palumbo. At the far end of the space, a green glass volume marks entry to a pass-through bathroom leading to a hidden bedroom with garden access.

Fittingly, the living room on floor two retains its characteristic plaster walls and bas-relief ceiling ornamentation, painted creamy white, and restored pine flooring. Behind the rotating bookshelf lies a surprise: a moody blue cocoon in which to read or relax. On the opposite side of the room is another surprise: Interior windows provide a split-level view of the entry seating nook below and the study a half-flight above, where a swath of springlike green frames the built-in desk.

Up on the third floor, “sleeping quarters radiate comfort like a true hotel experience,” Dellensen remarks. Exposed beams trace the peaked ceiling in the main bedroom. Two-way mirrored panels enclose the WC/shower stall, offering sight lines out (into the wet area’s Japanese-inspired soaking tub and beyond) but not in. Up a ladder, an additional mini level is squeezed in below the roof’s bell gable to function as the daughter’s bedroom. So enamored are the homeowners by their pied-à-terre’s charm that they are spending even more time there than they envisioned.

Related Post: i29 Updates Classical Interiors of Landmarked Enlightenment Building in Amsterdam

Sigma: paintwork (stairwell)

kvadrat: acoustic wall fabric (living room)

Aleksandra Gaca: pillow fabric (reading room, living room)

norR11: lounge chair, ottoman (living room)

maruni: chairs (kitchen)

concraft: concrete flooring

quooker: sink fittings

blumenberg: custom tub, custom sink (bathroom)

glas xl: two-way mirror

water revolution: taps

Foscarini: pendant lights

schneinder interieurbouw: custom furniture and woodwork

seasons parket: oak flooring

G.K. Visbeen & Co: general contractor

kodde: restoration architect

Bates Masi + Architects and David Kleinberg Design Associates Create a Contemporary East Hampton Estate

2022 Best of Year Winner for Beach House

Well before the East End of Long Island, New York, became known for shingle-style mega mansions, its residential vernacular was the saltbox, a simple two-story volume with a gable roof that comes closer to the ground in the back than in the front. Bates Masi + Architects decided it was the right form to give a new 11,450-square-foot weekend house for a couple and their family on a large plot of land in East Hampton. The clients asked for three semi-attached buildings, one for themselves and one each for their grown children (and their future progeny). Firm principal and Interior Design Hall of Fame member Paul Masi gravitated to the saltbox shape, so that the structures would feel protected from the elements in the back but wide open in the front, where the higher rooflines accommodate two stories of windows, all offering spectacular Atlantic Ocean views.

Masi’s other big move was to arrange the three pavilions in an L-shape, which provides a sense of enclosure around the yard and swimming pool. The saltboxes are joined by glass connectors, but only at ground level; each has its own staircase to second-floor bedrooms and baths. The architect relied almost entirely on five materials: cedar, which clads most of the exterior; oak, for much of the interior; limestone, for floors, countertops, terraces, and some external walls; darkened bronze, for various kinds of trim; and, of course, glass. “We had to limit the palette because the house is so big,” Masi explains. “You lose the essence of it if there’s too much going on.” This ethos harks back to the early 1980s, when firm founder and fellow Hall of Famer Harry Bates—now 94 and retired—built modest beach houses out of whatever he could find in local lumber yards, a necessary discipline that became part of the firm’s DNA. When Masi joined Bates in 1998, he began devising ways to keep things simple even as clients demanded more and more luxury.

This couple, intending that the property becomes a family heirloom passed down from generation to generation, wanted to make sure it would last. That was fine with Masi, who thought in centuries rather than decades while designing it. “We put a lot of redundancy into the building envelope,” he explains, noting that the house is sheathed in two layers of shingle-like boards with gutters and leaders sandwiched between them to keep water away from the weathertight shell. The cedar is fastened to the structure with custom stainless-steel clips that don’t penetrate the wood, avoiding the damage nails or screws could cause the boards when they expand and contract.

The architect didn’t make things easy for himself. Exterior walls and roofs, identically clad, meet without even a whiff of an overhang. Exposing the transition from one surface to another means there’s nowhere to hide even the smallest flaw. “It’s harder than it looks to pull that off,” Masi admits. “Everything has to be perfect.” That includes four “light chimneys,” his term for a series of massive bronze-clad skylights that project through the roof. They ensure light “cascades down through the stairwells,” he continues, an effect that’s enhanced by open-tread staircases hanging on thin vertical steel-and-oak struts that descend from the second-floor ceiling. The stairwells double as ideally illuminated display areas for larger pieces of art (the couple are passionate collectors). And where the house turns a 90-degree angle, the nearly cubic 18-by-18-foot glass-enclosed connector space serves as a sculpture gallery. Delicate cedar-slat screens provide necessary shade, while large, operable windows make it easy getting lage artworks in and out of the space.

The clients brought in Interior Design Hall of Fame member David Kleinberg to furnish the house. The founding partner of David Kleinberg Design Associates, who has worked on multiple residences for the same couple before, softened the vast main living area with a custom beige wool rug. Much of the furniture is upholstered in shades of gray, including custom club chairs and sofas and a pair of French 1950’s oak lounge chairs. The seating is gathered around two Fredrikson Stallard cast-acrylic coffee tables that sit on the rug like massive chunks of ice. A patinated-bronze and polished-copper suspended light sculpture by Niamh Barry adds a note of drama overhead.

But Kleinberg has no desire to hog credit for this house. “It’s clear that architecture was the highest priority,” he notes. “The artworks were second in importance. And then came the furnishings, which were to be laid back, relaxed, and supportive of the architecture and art.” What Kleinberg doesn’t mention is that many of the pieces he has so carefully curated could well become heirlooms in their own right.

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katherine dalene weil, nick darin, nick braaksma, hung fai tang: bates masi + architects

lance duckett scott: david kleinberg design associates

orsman design: lighting consultant

steven maresca: structural engineer

men at work construction: general contractor

awg art advisory: art consultant

perry guillot: landscape consultant

maison gerard: oak lounge chairs, light sculpture (living area)

david gill gallery: coffee tables

Patterson Flynn: custom rug

joseph walsh studio: custom table (dining area)

victoria + albert: tub (bathroom)

apparatus: pendant fixtures (kitchen)

wolf: range (kitchen)

vent-a-hood: ventilation hood

sub-zero: refrigerator

bernd goeckler: glass table (sculpture gallery)

bybee stone company: limestone flooring and cladding

Keller Minimal Windows: windows and doors

These Residential Interiors Offer a Palette to Suit Every Mood

A trio of new residential interiors runs the emotional gamut from bright and sunny to serene and sophisticated.

Manuelle Gautrand Architecture, Paris

Natural light floods the award-winning architect’s first residential interior, a 1,300-square-foot duplex in a 17th-century Marais building, where ceilings were raised, a ribbon skylight installed, and the play of volumes and voids carefully calibrated to take full advantage of the expansive windows—not least in the living area, which is dominated by a stack of colorful blocks forming a sunny sculptural staircase and fireplace.

Lorla Studio, New York

Quiet sophistication reigns in this renovated 1,900-square-foot garden apartment, housed in a former 19th-century church, where the confidently cosmopolitan taste of its young professional woman owner is reflected in a neutral background palette—white walls, light wood floors—that sets off a characterful array of vintage and custom furniture, warm-brass and matte-black light fixtures with sculptural silhouettes, and a gallery’s worth of commissioned and collected artworks.

No Architects, Prague

Two striking paintings—a numerical abstraction by Vladimír Houdek and a melancholy dreamscape by Josef Bolf—set the program in this renovated 1,400-square-foot maisonette, the former’s numbers and raw edges reflected in the perforated pattern on the radiator covers and the ragged bottoms of the kitchen cabinet doors, the latter’s gently sorrowful mood echoed in a teardrop-shape pendant fixture and the meditative greige of a feature wall.

Dufner Heighes Transforms a Historic House in Pelham, New York into a Modern Family Home

Flip back a page, please. Now, kick up your feet, relax—here, have a cocktail—and observe this intriguing wood-paneled room: the resolutely leafy view, that groovy triangular window, the serene quiet, the vintage-heavy furniture scheme. Bet you think this is the living room of some cozy ’70’s-mod cabin on a remote rural plot, right? Well, surprise! In fact, this is the second-floor sitting room of a painstakingly preserved century-old Edwardian-style manse within shouting distance (although please don’t; the baby’s sleeping) of the Bronx.

Dufner Heighes was the firm tasked with future-proofing the historic Pelham, New York, house for a growing family. The 7,100-square-foot dwelling has an intriguing back story. Previous owners include the island nation of Barbados, which used it as an embassy, and a Coca-Cola executive who frequently hosted President Eisenhower there back in the 1950s. Another head of state, George Washington, reportedly stayed on the property, too, in a structure that once stood on this abode’s exact footprint. That provenance piqued the interest of Erica Holborn, CEO of Sandow Design Group (Interior Design’s parent company) and a self-professed real-estate enthusiast. “I’m a house-with-a-story person,” she admits.

When Holborn and her husband, Andrew, first saw the property listing, they deemed the eight-bedroom too big for their needs. Fast forward a year later. Their Dufner Heighes–designed Sutton Place apartment was getting a bit too snug for their expanding family (especially with WFH in the mix), and their upstate getaway, a 1970’s A-frame designed by Frank Lloyd Wright protégés, was too far from the city for full-time residency. Plus, the Holborns got an offer on the latter that they couldn’t refuse. So when the price dropped on the Pelham place around the same time, they finally took a look—and were sold.

Among the structure’s many attributes was that it had been pristinely restored, from the oak millwork to the original hardware. “It was a perfect situation, because the previous owners had updated a few things, like the kitchen, but restored everything else—stripping layers of paint off moldings and all that stuff no one wants to deal with,” notes Daniel Heighes Wismer, firm copartner with Greg Dufner. In short, it was practically turnkey. Early site visits suggested the project would be primarily decorative and cosmetic: reupholstering some existing furnishings, buying new items to fill in a few gaps, replacing antique light fixtures with more modern designs, updating cabinetry, hanging artwork. Midway through planning the new kitchen, however, it became apparent the current footprint was underscaled for the size of the house and had an awkward, dinky island unsuited to cooking and dining. “During one of our meetings with the team from Bilotta, with whom we were designing the kitchen,” Wismer recalls, “someone questioned whether we could tear down a wall to annex the adjoining butler’s pantry—and that changed everything,” necessitating plumbing and electrical rerouting plus new structural steel. “My dream has always been to have a butler’s pantry,” Holborn sighs. “And then I finally buy a house with one—and promptly take it out!”

The monthslong renovation was well worth it. The new scheme is much brighter and airier, with a long Arabescato Corchia marble island that seats four, plus a window-wrapped breakfast nook. Dufner Heighes deployed two patterns of Artistic Tile terrazzo flooring, one incorporating marble chips, to create area rug–like accents that delineate spatial zones. Shaker-style cabinetry is simpatico with the period architecture yet modern enough to suit the décor. The same flooring and cabinetry also extend into an adjacent space, a former family room that now serves as a storage-packed mudroom.

The reinvention of a living space as service-oriented hub made sense, given the floorplan already offered a generous number of hangout areas, including the ground-floor salon and contiguous sunroom, a second-floor playroom for two-year-old Marlowe and baby Bodhi, a sitting room off the primary suite, and the family and game rooms that anchor the daylit basement level. “The challenge,” Dufner says, “was how to make each living space feel like it had a unique function and purpose.” Seating in particular was selected with specific activities and postures in mind. Thus the salon’s more upright Bob sectional, its firm, snakelike form perfect for perching with a glass of wine; the sunroom’s more lounge-y Bouroullec Brothers Ploum sofa, a holdover from the upstate house (albeit newly reupholstered); and the super deep, nap-conducive sofa in the family room, where TV viewing occurs.

Though the house has a traditional layout, with discrete rooms, they open graciously onto each other, and curating sight lines was particularly important. Many features were considered holistically so they would work together from room to room. On the first floor, for instance, “there are points where you can see the ceiling fixtures in the sunroom, living room, entry hall, and the dining room all at once,” Wismer explains. “So the lighting we specified all needed to work within their respective rooms and also as a cohesive group.” Furniture and other accents were chosen and placed similarly, he adds. “There was a balancing of where we could go a little wild and where something had to be toned down so it wouldn’t get too heavy or layered.”

Speaking of going a little wild, check out the dining room wallpaper. The pattern, a trippy graphic confection in riotous hues, tents the room, extending up from crisp wainscoting lacquered a mercurial green-gray color. The op art patterning is the perfect jazz riff on the abode’s 1914 bones. “The contrast between historic and modern is just so great,” says Wismer. A sentiment that summarizes the project top to bottom.

knoll: sofa

dunbar: side table

design for macha: ceiling fixture

through noguchi shop: floor lamp

garrett leather: armchair shearling

kvadrat: side chair fabric

blå station through scandinavian spaces: sofa

house of finn juhl: chairs

Gubi: coffee table

aronson’s: rug

bd barcelona through ddc: green side table.

Fredericia: daybed

lawson-fenning: vessels

bilotta: cabinetry

Artistic Tile: flooring

seungjin yang through the future perfect: pink stool

Blu Dot: yellow ottoman

through noguchi shop: pendant

Louis Poulsen: pendants

voutsa: wallpaper

e15 through stillfried wien: table

Carl Hansen & Son: chairs

iittala through fiskars group: glass birds

bd barcelona through ddc: credenza

aronson’s: rug

mitchell gold + bob williams: sofa

aronson’s: rug

Carl Hansen & Son: Lounge

Blu Dot: side table

through john derian: artwork

ligne roset: sofa

iacoli: coffee table

CB2: side table

Artistic Tile: flooring, counters

bilotta: cabinetry

Carl Hansen & Son: chairs, stools

e15 through stillfried wien: table

Louis Poulsen: pendants

casey johnson studio: custom table

Blu Dot: ottoman

through john derian: flowers

aj madison: appliances

lee jofa: wallpaper

through design within reach: rocking chair

dunbar: sofa

house of finn juhl: coffee table

floyd: shelving

stokke: crib

rejuvenation: ceiling fixture

nessen lighting: gold lamp

&tradition: coffee table, ottoman

Carl Hansen & Son: green lounge chair

mitchell gold + bob williams: sofa

aronson’s: rug

kvadrat: mama bear chair fabric

zak & fox: club chair fabric

design for macha: ceiling fixture

michael robbins: bench

lawson-fenning: bed

once milano: quilt

aronson’s: rug

flavor paper: wallpaper

Gubi: mirror

visual comfort through circa lighting: table lamps (sitting room, dining room, family room, bedroom); ceiling pendant (living room, dining room, foyer); floor lamps (living room, nursery); reading lamp (living room)

through furniture from scandinavia: items from fredericia, house of finn juhl, gubi, carl hansen & sØn, louis poulsen, and &tradition

Duet Gives an Old-School Sydney Residence a Youthful Update

As far as first projects go, this five-bedroom house set on a half-acre plot complete with pool and tennis court is an undoubtedly impressive one, both for its scale and for the design freedom extended to interior designers Shannon Shlom and Dominique Brammah. Collaborating for the first time as co-founders of the Sydney studio Duet, the pair worked symbiotically to transform the jaded Tudor-style dwelling in suburban Strathfield, Australia, into a fresh-faced home suited to modern living. The clients, George and Michleen Geagea, had purchased the sizeable two-story residence with the desire to create a family-friendly environment for their growing brood. George, a property developer and frequent traveler, also wanted the interior to reflect the luxury hotel aesthetic he appreciated on the road, and to leverage his company’s team of contractors and consultants. Other than that, he gave Duet carte blanche. “This was a true trust exercise where we had complete autonomy to run with our ideas based on the initial brief,” Shlom recalls.

Although the house, built in 1916, had been through a previous renovation and addition, “it was formulaic and lacked heart and soul,” Shlom explains. “The original spaces were bland while the more recently added contemporary spaces were a pastiche of confused styles.” The duo’s initial site visit and floor plan review sparked an idea they realized would improve the flow of foot traffic while also instating spatial logic: relocating the staircase from the entry hall to a more central spot closer to the layout’s actual midpoint. The new stair, a twisty spiral with Carrara marble treads, neatly divides the plan into two zones: a formal one comprising the living room, the guest powder room, and the study, and a more casual, free-flowing wing housing the family room, kitchen/dining area, butler’s pantry, and an additional half-bath. “Those adjustments honored the proportions of the original rooms while allowing for the creation of a generous, open, contemporary space,” Brammah notes. Further bridging old and new are architectural details including custom wall paneling, large-scale dentil molding, parquet de Versailles oak flooring, and vintage lighting—“elements that acknowledge the history of the house yet allowed for a new language that didn’t feel like a replication,” she continues. “It’s an approach that encapsulates the essence of the project: a deeply layered scheme that can continue to evolve with the family over its lifetime.”

Other major interventions to the property include a pergola with an outdoor kitchen and bath, a freestanding tennis/guest house courtside, a rear extension encompassing an enlarged showcase garage (home to George’s vintage car collection) and a game room in which the couple can host late-night card games without disrupting family life in the main house. Indeed, the entire property is both party minded yet practical, down to the kitchen.

“The family loves entertaining—but not the idea of guests getting elbow-deep in grease during cleanup after a long Sunday lunch,” Shlom says. So, Duet conceived a double kitchen: a showpiece cookery paired with a hardworking tucked-away butler’s pantry that houses a second set of appliances. The latter functions as the day-to-day meal-prep area, which freed Duet to push the design parameters of the public-facing side, oriented around a commandingly contemporary two-tone stone island that stands sculpture-like.

For furnishings, Shlom and Brammah sourced far and wide. “Lighting was an important part of bringing a worldly, well-traveled feel to the design, with many eras represented so as not to create a prescriptive style,” Shlom says. The showstopper Lindsey Adelman Drop pendant above the dining room table, in a patinated copper finish, “made our hearts sing,” Brammah says, pointing out how it elegantly twists and turns in the breeze when sliders to the adjacent outdoor living spaces are open. Duet also commissioned myriad custom pieces. In the primary bedroom, for instance, the headboard, bedside tables, pendants, checkerboard broadloom carpet, bed linens, and silk window treatments are all bespoke.

As for the young members of the household, who range from six months to 11 years old, their sanctums are at once age-appropriate yet designed with longevity in mind, featuring colors and finishes sure to stand the test of time. Take the playroom: The ground-floor space, formerly an uptight formal room, is now an ode to a big-top tent, treated to a vibrant mix of terracotta ceiling stripes and circular elements ranging from the sofa cushions to the area rug.

Equally playful, albeit in another vein entirely, is George’s study. Mirror-backed built-in shelving showcases his prized whiskey collection alongside vintage treasures. An added grace note, the designers specified Piero Fornasetti’s classic Teatro wallpaper, featuring an audience of theater-goers, “so George would always be in good company working late into the night,” Brammah says with a laugh. Who needs alone time?

Duet: Lead Consultants

AJH+: architecture

Studio Rewild: landscape consultant

Megan Morton: editorial styling

Sophia Kaplan: editorial florals

Globewest: coffee tables (family room, living room), table, chairs (kitchen), sofa, side table (cubby), bedside tables (guest bedroom, daughter’s bedroom)

Poltrona Frau through Cult Design: pouf (family room)

Pulpo through Domo: floor lamp

Cole & Sons through Iconradford Wallpaper: wallpaper (study)

Cassina through Cult Design: desk

Fourth Street Home: egg sculpture

Through Mercer & Lewis: amphora pots

joel escalona through adorno design: ceramic vase

through james said: vintage wall light (study), vintage chandelier (living room)

gubi through cult design: chair (study), lamp (playroom)

the visuals: plinth (stair), sculptures (stair, living room)

deemah stone: stone flooring (stair, foyer)

lighting collective: pendant light (playroom)

simple studio: window treatments

murobond: accent paint (playroom, guest bedroom)

house of orange: bench (playroom), console (living room), lamps (guest bedroom)

through smith street bazaar: vintage pendant light (living room)

through tigmi trading: lounge chair, footstool

jetmaster: fireplace

Lindsey adelman studio: pendant light (kitchen)

grazia & co.: stools

mcmullen & co.: vase

porter’s: cabinetry paint (kitchen, butler’s pantry)

granite & marble works: countertop marble (kitchen, daughter’s bathroom), backsplash (tennis house)

through 1st dibs: pendant (foyer)

liwans through nicholas & alistair: vintage console

zip water: specialty tap (butler’s pantry)

onsite supply & design: backsplash

WK: countertop stone

tim roodenrys: rug

&tradition through cult design: lamp (cubby)

the society inc.: wallpaper

ascraft: wallpaper (primary bedroom)

fibonacci stone through onsite supply and design: stone tile (tennis house)

honoré through tigmi trading: pendant light

thonet: stools

julie neill through montauk lighting co.: pendant light (guest bedroom)

s a s veer: artwork

the stitching project: bedcover

dulux: paint

we love parquet: flooring

perrin & rowe through english tapware company: sink fittings

Tappeti: custom rugs

heritage tile co.: terrazzo (kids’ baths)

surface gallery: wall tiles (kids’ baths)

snelling: wall lights (kids’ baths)

Agence DL-M Sets a Left Bank Paris Apartment on a Colorful New Course

In recent years, interior designer Damien Langlois-Meurinne has worked on a series of Paris apartments that enjoy mind-blowing views. The dining room of one flat close to Place du Trocadéro is in direct axis with the Eiffel Tower. Another sits atop a hill in the city’s 16th arrondissement and offers sweeping vistas of almost all the French capital’s monuments, extending to Notre-Dame in the distance. Yet none of them has such a direct link to the Seine as this 3,500-square-foot four-bedroom located right on the river’s Left Bank. Look through the trees to the right and you see the Louvre; to the left, the Place de la Concorde. On July 26, 2024, its fourth-floor windows will no doubt be a privileged perch: That is the day earmarked for the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, when some 10,500 athletes will sail past on boats from the Pont d’Austerlitz to the Pont d’Iéna.

The project stands out for another reason, too. Since setting up his own practice, Agence DL-M, back in 2003, Langlois-Meurinne has displayed a gift for reworking floor plans and spatial volumes. Often, he’ll gut an apartment and start things over completely from scratch. For a recent commission, he even had to remove a 215-square-foot swimming pool that had been installed, rather incongruously, on the fifth floor of a typical Haussmannian building.

There are, however, exceptions to every rule, and this project, for an art-collecting couple from the Middle East, was one of them. “For once, there was a natural balance to the existing layout,” Langlois-Meurinne recalls. “I didn’t really change much apart from connecting the primary bedroom to the adjoining bathroom.” The new birch-clad portal between the two is particularly deep. “It gives the space a sense of protection and intimacy,” Langlois-Meurinne notes. He also modified the shape of the walls in the kitchen, replacing jagged angles with enveloping curves.

What was lacking, though, was much in the way of architectural personality; the space was almost completely devoid of historical elements. So, Langlois-Meurinne designed new ones largely inspired by the Art Deco style of the 1920s and ’30s. He installed wainscoting and cornices in the large double sitting room as well as a host of elements in staff, a type of plaster he particularly loves working with. “It’s extremely supple and allows you to create rounded forms more easily than you can with wood or marble,” Langlois-Meurinne explains. The material was used to create the sculptural fireplace that anchors one end of the living space, the ribbed walls in the entry hall, and the domed ceiling in the dining room, among other details.

The rest of the decor is typical of Langlois-Meurinne’s style, from the strong axes to the integration of niches and alcoves to the bronze door frames that help structure the space. In many of his projects, the designer favors generously proportioned hallways. “For me, they’re essential,” he says. “They’re the backbone of a flat and need to be lively and have their very own personality.” Bestowing visual impact in the main hall, which serves as a gallery, is a mesmerizing moonlike work in bright red by Dutch artist Corine van Voorbergen. Langlois-Meurinne also created a rhythmic pattern on the floor below by insetting the Tundra Gray marble slabs with brass bands arranged in a syncopated fashion. “Their reflections help bring light to the heart of the apartment,” he says.

Light was a concern in the primary bathroom due to an absence of windows. The striking Panda White marble floor, which Langlois-Meurinne compares to a contemporary artwork, helps to distract attention from the fact. “The veining is very dynamic,” he says, “almost like an India ink drawing.” The designer also installed a plaster ceiling dome above the tub, into which he recessed indirect lighting. “When it’s switched on, it becomes quite immaterial and conjures the sensation of a light well or skylight,” he declares.

For aficionados of Langlois-Meurinne’s work, the color palette throughout the apartment may come as something of a surprise. He has long accustomed us to cooler tones, marked by a predilection for shades of blue. “I have a very strong attachment to the sea and the Mediterranean,” he says, explaining that he spent many a childhood vacation in the Cyclades of Greece. Here, however, he decided to play with warmer tones. The walls of the dining room were painted a pale salmon hue, and a monochromatic orange acrylic on canvas—Circus Peanut, by the art collective Henry Codax—dominates one end of the living room. “I don’t know where the inspiration came from,” Langlois-Meurinne admits. “I guess it’s a question of desire, of simply wanting to try out something a little different.”

Mark Alexander: straight sofa fabric (living room)

Lorenzo Castillo: armchair fabric, curved sofa fabric

Versmissen: side tables

Porta Romana: glass lamps (living room, entry, bedroom)

Barbara Lormelle: vases (living room)

Karen Swami: blue ceramics

Nicholas Haslam: chandelier (gallery), wall lights (powder room, bedroom)

TFA: bench fabric (gallery)

Creativ Light: pendant light (kitchen)

arteriors: table

Marc Uzan: ceramics

Graff: sink fittings (powder room, primary bathroom)

Schwung: pendant light (dining room)

Circa Lighting: lamp

Nobilis: chair fabric

HK Living: console (entrance)

Allied Maker: chandelier

Tom Kirk: chandelier (corridor)

Christophe Delcourt: nightstands (bedroom)

Lambert&Fils: pendant light (primary bathroom)

Chromatic: wall paint

Galerie Hussenot, Galerie Greta Meert, Galerie Filles du Calvaire, Galerie Scéne Ouverte, Galerie Maison Rapin: artwork