Apartment 174

Site: Rome
Year: 2019
Client: Private
Area:  84 mq
Team: Acaia 61 Studio Architecture, WAR - Werehouse of Architecture and Research, Architetto Evelina Dubini

The apartment is located on the third floor of a building in a prestigious setting, between the Colosseum and the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano. The client's need was to modify the distribution of the rooms, in which a small kitchen occupied the hallway that connects all the rooms. The proposal was to create a kitchen in the living room, using the existing structure and separate the two living room-kitchen areas, recreating a service space in the hallway with a wardrobe that filters and creates access to the bathroom.
From the first inspection, some characteristic features of the house emerged: the presence of platform, raised by 20 cm from the entrance floor, a wrought iron structure at the entrance, covered with colored glass panels, used as a storage room, the same type of structure used also to close the loggia, travertine and stucco elements, floors in colored cement tiles and wooden and vaulted ceilings.

The design idea was to "mend" all these valuable elements through an intervention with a contemporary and elegant taste, at the same time recognizable and well harmonized with the context, a "common thread" among the numerous additions of the time. chose to keep. To obtain this result, we wanted to give greater prominence to the wrought iron structure of the living room, cutting it and setting it in a regular frame which, without interruption between the platform and the wooden ceiling, at the same time creates a division between the living room space and the kitchen. This separation is instead "overcome" by the insertion of a system of pendant lamps, designed in iron, which with geometric rigor burst into the space and connect the very particular curved table in travertine with the kitchen space, already highlighted by the slate platform.
The living room ceiling has been sandblasted and brought to a natural color to brighten the environment as much as possible and make the natural light to reflect more. The bedroom has been repaved with reused parquet and enhanced by lighting.
The wardrobe, that characterizes the hallway and separates it from the bathroom, has been designed in such a way as to make the most of the available space.
Made with reused panels by an Orvieto craftsman, the wardrobe was designed in such a way as to mark a regular rhythm of the panels, obtaining in one of them the access door to the bathroom. Here we have chosen to enhance the small vaulted ceiling and the stucco masks on the wall.