Gallery house in Paris, a barrier-free, calm horizontal space following Japanese traditional architecture

The project is a renovation of a private apartment on the first floor of a three-storey residential building located in a calm villa in Paris. The existing L-shape plan was extending up to the boundary walls with windows opening on the opposite sides, to the east and the west. The center space was a dark hall, isolated by walls, almost without any natural lighting. In our project, we removed all existing dividing walls carefully, to create a large and barrier-free calm horizontal space where the clients can move seamlessly and, along the day, continuously feel every lighting, shadow and air coming in and out everywhere in their house. At the center of the apartment, a new open Gallery – with library and display shelves – stretches across the interior and now connects the two spaces originally separated by walls: from a kitchen-dining-salon on the left-hand side, to the night area on the right, passing through a welcome space in the center that showcases the client’s personality and history. On the left-hand side, a curved wall with Tatami finish runs softly from the kitchen to the center of the apartment and creates a soft continuity. Hiding the guest sanitary and the building shafts, this wall was built by Naya Design, a carpenter from Hungary. On the right-hand side a sunset salon – a calm reading lounge with built-in library – soften by full-height / full-width delicate sheer curtains – becomes a guest room thanks to a wall integrated folding bed and full height pivot doors, both developed and constructed by a highly skilled French company (Schmit Tradition): the bedrooms, usually kept open during the day, can be managed with sliding walls and full height doors integrated in the wall furniture. With all panels open, the clients can move around freely and continuously feel where the sunshine comes from. The materials are very natural with a soft touch feeling, all in mat or satin finish. The floor, made of a continuous surface of natural and brushed mat oak parquet floor, kindly catches the sunshine and the shade of the people moving from one space to another. The sunshine softens the apartment throughout the day, the shade moves slowly and changes continuously the visual impression of the material. The vertical accents of dark oak walls (by Bruno Sciaraffa) bring a contrast into the horizontality of space and create delicate and artistic details in such a large, dynamic interior. To feel the nature in each detail, in the way of Japanese traditional architecture, we introduced a tatami wall finish material made by a Japanese Tatami manufacturer from Tokyo. The delicately composed embossed texture of the Tatami finish on the curved wall gives kind and dynamic sensations at the same time. We wanted to integrate a piece of Japanese spirit regarding the origin of one of our clients.