Tower Apartment / Agence SML

Tower Apartment / Agence SML

Tower Apartment  / Agence SML - Chair, TableTower Apartment  / Agence SML - HandrailTower Apartment  / Agence SML - Image 4 of 15Tower Apartment  / Agence SML - Image 5 of 15Tower Apartment  / Agence SML - More Images+ 10

  • Architects: Agence SML
  • Area Area of this architecture project Area:  25
  • Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2011
  • Photographs
    Photographs:Herve Abbadie
Tower Apartment  / Agence SML - Image 4 of 15
© Herve Abbadie

Tower Apartment  / Agence SML - Handrail
© Herve Abbadie

How to fit a 1-bedroom apartment into an atypical high and narrow volume, the roof being the only possible source of daylight? This is the question to which Clemence Eliard and Marc Sirvin - architects at Agence SML - had to find answers to to create this surprising apartment.

Tower Apartment  / Agence SML - Image 15 of 15
3D Sections

The unusual layout of this apartment resulted from merging several batches acquired over the years, located at different stories of the building. The owner, who had been living there for some time, desired to restructure the volume and create a home office.

The architects envisioned the space as a tower in which each level would have its proper function: the bathroom in the basement, the kitchen-living-room at ground level, the home-office and dressing-room on the 1st floor and the bedroom higher up on the 2nd floor. These functions being all linked together by alternating tread stairs, daylight coming through a full height void. The ground floor, located in the back of a courtyard and previously lit in second day, would thus become an illuminated space thanks to the skylights.

Tower Apartment  / Agence SML - Handrail, Beam
© Herve Abbadie

The apartment on 4 levels has a surface area of 25 square meters.

Tower Apartment  / Agence SML - Windows, Facade, Garden, Courtyard
© Herve Abbadie

All details have been thought of in order to optimize space and maximize light: the alternating tread stairs have a limited footprint and remain practical in spite of their steepness. Carpentry and closets are integrated, the bedroom is nested at the very top of the tower, the office floor is a metal grid so that light can flow through it.

While conceiving of this unusual apartment, the architects were guided by simplicity and minimalism: all surfaces are painted white, and metalwork contrasts sharply with the raw wood of the carpentry.


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Project location

Address:7th arrondissement of Paris, Paris, France

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Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.
About this office
Cite: "Tower Apartment / Agence SML" 21 Feb 2014. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/478835/tower-apartment-agence-sml> ISSN 0719-8884

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