Architectural Ingenuity in a Paris Duplex Redone by Heju Studio
Photography courtesy of Heju
Presented with two floors in an 1830s Paris building that needed to be knit together for a newly married couple in their fifties, architects Hélène Pinaud and Julien Schwartzmann of Heju needed to come up with feats of derring-do. Each floor is 50 square meters (538 square feet) and there was a lot to fit in, and the transformation required “a huge amount of structural work,” say the architects. Join us for a look at the craftsmanship and cohesion they introduced.
Located in a five-story building on Rue Faubourg du Saint-Antoine, the apartment has an open-plan first floor.
The archways create niches for displaying art and objects.
The architects came up with the idea of elevating the steps above the kitchen—with a counter that extends out to become the stair landing.
A brass sink is inset into the aforementioned hardworking counter of quartz.
The elevated staircase has an enclosure of white powder-coated steel.
The top floor had previously been used for storage—”there was nothing in there, not even a real floor,” Hélène tells us.
The main bedroom has a bank of Baltic birch storage cabinets and a multi-tasking fluted headboard.
The sink vanity is a companion piece to the headboard.
The architects also managed to include a built-in work area.