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Architects: Nicolas Dahan
- Area: 450 m²
- Year: 2018
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Photographs:Vincent Leroux
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Manufacturers: Cassina, EDRA, Glas Italia, Hangsrohe, Legrand, Vola
Text description provided by the architects. Exclusively made-to-measure, the French architect Nicolas Dahan signs an impressive display of design integrated within a 450m2 two-story apartment. A secret is shared with every footstep taken; curves and edges slide towards each other, disappearing into worlds of varnish, marble, wood, coloured mirrors, and pastel. An inestimable residence where the ceiling is a luminous work of art itself: an incandescent surface evading all signs of the light source, enhancing its own beauty with a filter of natural light.
The 150m2 ceiling, unifying and distributing the spaces of the living room, the entrance, and the kitchen, is a performance in its own right. I drew a very soft undulation, similar to that of a beach rippled by waves, disrupting the apartment’s minimalism so as to determine the living spaces. It appears as a single unbroken surface, whereas it required over 100 slabs of 1,2m x 1,2m staff (a building stone made from plaster) assembled within the apartment and then sanded down for three months in order to achieve this perfectly smooth surface » describes Nicolas Dahan.
Ripples within which a series of made to measure amber LED tubes embed themselves, fitted with aluminum filters to render a softer light. The ceiling is emblematic of the attention to detail brought to the entirety of this carefully sculpted apartment, as is the immense varnished wooden sliding door (3m x 3m), which closes off the kitchen and can be drawn open by the single hand of a child. Italian savoir-faire is applied to all of the materials: marble, mirrors, wooden flooring from Padou shipped to and fitted in Moscow "for the perfection of details, utter invisibility of systems, and the highlighting of materials" explains the architect.
The maple flooring assembles the smallest available boards in order to create a unified and smooth wooden mass, a floor more than a parquet, it becomes a surface upon which light glides. Large mineral volumes give shape to the main functionalities of the apartment: Cipolino stone in the entrance hall forms the huge reception bench, black marble from Carrare establishes the 10m long kitchen counter, grey marble from Carrare walls the hammam and the three main bathrooms which perfectly interlock as if they were sculpted from one single massive stone.
Each element, each function, has been conceived and drawn by the French architect so as to create the purest of settings. The red and blue mirrors of the bedrooms and dressing room diffuse the mineral essence of the residence, but are immediately softened by the rhythm of Kvadrat woven textiles hung in front of each window and used as a separator creating a home cinema in the living room. As for the dining room, it has been set up under an especially redesigned rotunda, a 7m high shell, varnished in pastel blue. It is a reception room reflecting the grandeur of the apartment, which holds 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, a hammam, a gym, a living room, a kitchen, and a flat for domestic staff, the whole spread out upon over 450m2.
