Located in the quiet, small town of Asnières-sur-Seine, just a few kilometers from the center of Paris, this 807-square-foot two-bedroom apartment initially had a ’70s aesthetic . To envision what it would look like after a makeover required a high dose of imagination.
“I had been looking for a new place for about a year when I saw the real estate ad for this apartment,” remembers the 40-year-old owner Hélène, who works in fashion and lives here with her 11-year-old son. “I scheduled the visit for the next day and liked the place. It was very different from what it is now: It was filled with furniture and had carpet on the floor, but I really loved the soft and quiet atmosphere.”
BEFORE: The homeowner saw the potential in her apartment despite all the furniture and busy carpets.
BEFORE: The quiet atmosphere was the real draw to the space.
AFTER: In the dining room, &Tradition chairs surround the made-to-measure table by Heju with an Atelier Areti ceiling light above it. A Ettore Sottsass table lamp sits on the USM shelves .
The French young interior architects behind Heju , Hélène Pinaud and Julien Schwartzmann, immediately had a great connection with the owner. As soon as they discovered the space, they knew they could create a very pure atmosphere—a departure from the old Haussmann apartments they usually work on. “Our client liked the functionality of the existing floor plan, so we almost didn’t change anything about it,” the duo says. “This idea was coherent with the minimal project influenced by the ’70s and ’80s that we wanted to design.”
One of the biggest challenges the interior architects faced during the six-month project was giving some personality to a standard flat. “In the main living space, we had to find a way to gather several functions in the same room without breaking the feeling of volume, so we created a ‘big living wall’ with arches that define the entrance, an office, and a library with some closed storage beneath it,” they say.
AFTER: One of the biggest changes to the home was this arched “living wall” created by the architects. The yellow Roly Poly chair by Faye Toogood adds a pop of color to the living room furnished with a Serax coffee table and vases by AYTM and LRNCE .