Restyling of the living room between ancient and contemporary

by Giulia | Apr 10, 2016 | IN THE WORLD OF DESIGN, LIVING AREA, PRIVATE APARTMENT

The ancient and the contemporary styles harmonize in the renovation of the living area of this house with a classic taste. An intervention that revised the layout of the entrance in favour of greater functionality and visual elegance of the external façade. A new interior layout of the living room has also been designed and a new look in order to communicate with the antique furniture existing. The old layout of this classic style private residence had the main entrance raised above the remaining rooms. The landing took place on a mezzanine level in correspondence with the staircase leading to the night area. In doing so, an entrance area was certainly identified, separating from the rest of the rooms. The raised position compromised its functionality.

THE NEW ENTRANCE

By bringing the main entrance to the ground floor, on the same level as the living room, the renovation also involved the appearance of the external façade, restoring visual balance. A wall equipped with a recessed showcase therefore closed the previous entrance area. This showcase is in an extremely essential style, with glass shelves and closure in order to show small collectibles. At the same time, it lightens the closing wall and constitutes an excellent protection element considering the raised position. To define an area that can act as a filter between the exposure of the external space and the privacy of the internal rooms, we chose a false ceiling with punctual lights. This visually detaches itself from the remaining ceiling both for a difference in the real and perceived height, and for the backlight, that underlines its borders. In order to delimit this room with the adjacent living room, a wardrobe took place with doors salvaged from an old wardrobe. The plasterboard structure gives more solidity to the furniture that naturally fits into the context as a sort of equipped dividing wall. The dark wooden doors of the eighteenth century, in addition to being an antique furniture to deserve greater visibility, relates consistently to the other old existing furniture. Like a sort of chamber of wonders, a wunderkammer to resume historical and artistic terminology, the interior holds a surprise. A gold wallpaper recovers all walls whit its contemporary graphics but classic in style. The best representation of the match between contemporary and ancient that characterizes the project concept. Glass shelves are attached to the external structure and act as a connection with the entrance wall, recalling the style of the showcase.

LIVING ROOM

The living room has been modifies in its layout and slightly enlarged. This meant that the dividing wall with the dining room could be equipped with contemporary furniture capable of perfectly fit with the room. In particular, it consists of an essential TV cabinet n white lacquered MDF with upper glass wall units. A recurring material in the entrance and living room. Placed on the corner, instead a library alternates empty elements with full volumes whose colours reflect the medium gray of the plaster and the white of the contemporary furniture. An often-winning combination, both as concerning the reinterpretation of modern classic style, and in a contemporary perspective. The colour match is also visible in the choice of the new gray leather sofas that stand out against the white back wall. Beyond the dividing wall of the living room, there is the dining room with an important, linear and extremely elegant dining table covered with gold leaves. The real treasure of this room. It matches with classic dark leather seats that perfectly relate to the colour choice. An antique dark walnut storage units recovered from other rooms, relates to these, further enhancing the dining room.

dining room table golden leaves ancient furniture

Ancient and contemporary can perfectly match creating suggestive environments. Here is another example, in this case surrounded by a citrus grove in Sicily. Click here to be fascinated by.

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Country style in a custumisez reinterpretation

by Giulia | Mar 23, 2016 | KITCHEN, PRIVATE APARTMENT, STYLE TIPS

We are used to design custum furniture, which best fit our interiors, but even the style can be customized in a modern country. To best satisfy our client’s country taste, we pop round to overseas farmhouse. Knobs for drawers unique in their own style, shaped baseboards with central voids, decorative bands on doors. For this project we lacked for nothing, even a trapezoidal-shaped extractor fan with a lower curved shape. A kitchen able to keep attention in each its detail, as the hand-woven curtain strictly in pastel red and white fabric that replaces the door under the sink. A bespoke container whose shape alternates sinuous shapes with linear profiles. Stylistic forms also recalled on the countertop with beige hue which in the back elevation assumes conformations with a strong stylistic taste. A country style that is personalised, shaped following the personality of its inhabitants. Here that the wall units flank shelves with different heights, alternating doors in matt lacquered MDF with glass doors with decorative strips. The classic cream-white colour undergoes a modern reinterpretation and is endowed with greater character with the add of a pastel gray-blue. As in an American farmhouse we let you discover its details with the photos below.

← WIP: organize a shop based on functional macro areas La Cartolibreria, a shop for the little ones →

Reflections and opacity of an apartment in Milano

by Giulia | Dec 17, 2015 | KITCHEN, LIVING AREA, PRIVATE APARTMENT, SLEEPING AREA, STYLE TIPS

With a panoramic view of the Milan skyline, reflections and opacities takes place in the renovation project by the architects Pierluigi Fasoli giving life to a rigorous apartment. A house that prefers to hide rather than show. Large full-height wardrobes and doors with storage points that characterize both the living area with the contemporary kitchen and the hallways, and the bright and austere bedroom.

REFLECTIONS

A rigorousness however animated by the material choice to alternate glossy and opaque surfaces, in a play of reflections that characterizes all environments. Starting therefore from the kitchen, focused on the choice of glossy white lacquered MDF for wall units and full-height doors. In correspondence with the first horizontal band of wall units, the reflections are underlined using a bronzed mirror, also applied in the back surface. Contemporary appliances with metal surfaces also integrate in this context. These include the refrigerator and the recessed oven, the double sink with a contemporary large tap and the hob with gas ovens. The design line of the kitchen follows a setting that prefers horizontality with recessed handle and upper vasistas-opening wall units. The play of reflections also involves all the doors of the apartment, the glossy lacobel of a white colour tending to light gray. The bedroom also responds to a material choice aimed at lucidity, with large full-height wardrobes and a vertical division of the doors. These elegantly harmonize with the dove-gray colour painting, a rigorous chromatic combination used in contemporary years. Verticality also taken up in the division of the window from which you can enjoy a panoramic view of Milan.

OPACITY

The hallway with service wardrobe and the entrance area with storage doors mostly represent the opaque component of this alternation. The first, alternates the glossy surfaces of the lacobel doors with the service cabinet in matt lacquered MDF of the same colour, detaching itself from the turtle dove-gray of the background paint. A vertical division underlined both by the dividing elements of the doors placed at regular intervals each other facing the back surface, and in the rhythmicity of the cabinet’s doors. The entrance area is also characterized by the same choice of alternation and chromatic contrast, with a recessed storage element that emerges from the drove-gray background with opaque white doors. The result is a formal and stylistic balance, underlined both by the chromatic contrast and by the geometric rigor of the forms.

apartment reflections opacity_hallway 01

apartment reflections opacity_hallway 02

← In the world of luxury retail, the white boxes for Tiziana Fausti Merry Christmas and Happy 2016 →

In the world of luxury retail, the white boxes for Tiziana Fausti

by Giulia | Aug 26, 2015 | IN THE WORLD OF DESIGN, RETAIL, CONTRACT AND RESTAURANT, WORK IN PROGRESS

Luxury corners in the retail world have a universal language, this is what white boxes are and how we made them for the Tiziana Fausti multibrand in Bergamo.

WHITE BOXES

The world of fashion speaks a universal language. A language composed of functionality, simplicity and beauty. Three keywords that become the fundamental requirements in the design of the white boxes. These constitute the basic module of the exhibit system of any corner: essential rooms that build the “basic display units”. A sort of empty box, perfect in the executive realization that can be declined in all contexts depending on the brand’s exhibition project. An extremely versatile element equipped with lighting, arrangement of electrical outlets and air conditioning ducts as planned. It should then be destinated to the single luxury brand. White boxes are certainly among the fundamental requests of each general contractor, also for their duration over the years. If it is true that the world of retail is the first to always dictate new trend and to continually renew itself, the white boxes instead constitute a timeless element capable of becoming a constant for the internal layout of the corners. A flexible room that will experience as few structural changes as possible. The design of the internal exhibition spaces and their management are entrusted to the visual and interior designers of the single brand.

PROJECT LAYOUT

For the Tiziana Fausti luxury store in the centre of Bergamo we have realized the white boxes as designed by the architect Marco Costanzi. In particular, the lyout of the commercial space was intended to hoas a multibrand space equipped with linear display elements in its central area and to host three luxury brands in the respective white boxes on the back wall.

MULTIBRAND

In the central space, linear elements that can also contain lighting in their essential profiles, as well as glass display shelves are designed. Made of polished stainless steel, they hold the cable system at the base, which allows linear lighting which also acts as a luminous frame. In this way, they function as stand-alone elements, providing the necessary light for the correct illumination of the products, but they also not exclude the use of any external spotlights that can improve their visibility.

TIZIANA FAUSTI WHITE BOXES

On the back wall there are four white boxes used to shortly host the corner of Alaia, Givenchy, Celine and Valentino. These have been equipped with a recessed lighting profile to which the directional spotlights are attached. The profile follows a rectangular shape and it is placed in the centre of the false ceiling. The electrical set-up and the placement of electrical outlets for potential wall displays or illuminated central showcase constituted the interior layout of the rooms. These were also equipped with the air conditioning system and the wall and ceiling structure was mounted according to the project. This is the case, for example, of the corner of Valentino, whose project envisaged a marble wall cladding that needs a supporting structure behind it. Concerning the external front view, the white boxes were characterized by clack waxed iron closing panels. These chromatically detaches themselves for the choice of black in which the logo of the luxury brands inside the corner are laser shaped. The size of the logo and its blacklighting is a dimensional constraint fixed by Architect Costanzi’s studio on each brand to visually standardize the external front view in accordance with the general project. The niches created between the corners are equipped to hold the mannequins of the brand as a sort of recessed showcase. Some photos of work in progress are shown below. N.B. We in retrospect added the photos of the fitting completed in August 2015 for a greater success of the visual representation.

white boxes Tiziana Fausti work in progress

← The Coffee Market, a store in Ibiza that smells like coffee Reflections and opacity of an apartment in Milano →

The Coffee Market, a store in Ibiza that smells like coffee

by Giulia | Jun 25, 2015 | IN THE WORLD OF DESIGN, RETAIL, CONTRACT AND RESTAURANT

The Lavazza coffee store inaugurated in Ibiza, in collaboration with Officina iDEa. Here the famous bitter grain becomes the protagonist and it expresses all its cultural and experiential variations.

COFFEE BREAK

Coffee culture is a tradition that passed down all over the world for years, knowing different variations according to the context in which it is settled. There is no continent without any charm of its essence, making it a real ritual. Did you know, for example, that in Ethiopia the preparation of Arabica coffee takes place in all its phases in a domestic environment? As a real ritual, starting from roasting, passing through the grinding and ending with the infusion, everything is done at home. Each culture knows its own technique, which ranges from preparation to tasting. An overview is available in this article from the Lavazza magazine. Italy is undoubtedly the homeland of coffee, with the unique and inimitable espresso. Its own definition encompasses the essence of Italian coffee. If in fact other countries conceives the coffee as a stop to calmly taste and enjoy, in the beautiful country it is often served at the counter, by standing and very quickly. <the barista expresses its skills knowing how to master the coffee machine by cranking out one cup after the other. It is no coincidence that the main feature of the espresso is that you can finish it in three sips. An espresso is perfect at any time of the day, nothing to do with the cappuccino with croissants that denotes the breakfast ritual. An espresso is a quickly break before going to work, but also a refill after lunch or the perfect closing of the day.

THE CONCEPT

The project, of which we had anticipated you some work in progress photos, follows the Officina iDEa’s concept, focused on the morphology of the coffee grain. Not only has that, the commercial space rather than a simple shop and bar fit perfectly into the category of concept store. It is in fact a retail space mostly focused on the experience and philosophy behind the band, which is in this case Lavazza. The atmosphere recalls for lines and shapes the sinuosity of the coffee grain, also matches with colours and materials that define it. This is the reason why a textured fabric-like laminate was chosen for the finish of the false ceiling and for the central pillar, to recall the texture of the jute bags in which the precious product is kept. The internal layout of the spaces provides a direct sales area for products, with relative exhibition, a tasting area to enjoy the sacred moment of the coffee break in a European concept. But also a series of infopoints where you can get closer to the cultural world and curiosities of the Italian coffee, and an import and export office visible from the large windows. The projects also considers the graphic point of view, establishing a user experience with a line that accompanies the customer towards the main display elements and in the tasting and sales area. A graphic line that also develops on the sidewalls from the floor, becoming three-dimensional displays elements.

MORPHOLOGY, COLOURS AND MATERIALS

The concept store follows a conceptual development of its spaces. Each of these is clearly identifiable in the forms and graphic lines, fitting harmoniously as a natural passage between the zones. The presence of exhibition volumes that emerge from the ground as a horizontal stratification of several layers mainly characterizes the space used for the product’s display and sale. If in the lower part these elements are made of natural lacquered curved MDF profiles with horizontal closing surface in white laminate, the upper part takes on its shape to incorporate the lighting. A stylistic line that characterizes the whole store, providing dynamism and graphic elegance. These elements are interspersed with other exhibition objects, recovered from yesterday’s time contexts and added to convey the ideas of authenticity and tradition. This is the case, for example, of the drawers spreads all over the back wall, becoming display elements for the various essence of coffee. Even the display cabinet with bright green doors has been recovered from an old context to take on new life. To enrich the space, we can found jute bags at the corners of the furnishings, which texture is takes from the sidewalls. The coffee bar is equipped with punctual lighting, with suspension lamps with a contemporary design. On the back, a linear display element took place, the external lines of which are rounded in accordance with the general design line. The tasting area is much more essential in design, to focus attention on the experience itself. Classic armchairs in black leather accompany reinvented pellets with metal wheels and glass support surface. Punctual lighting is set up on sight in the recessed false ceiling. It is exactly from this room, that the area for import and export offices takes place visible through a large window, making it a multifunctional environment.