Casa Grenelle

Apartment Renovation in Paris

• Categories Residential
• Status Completed
• Year 2019
• Location 7th Arrondissement, Paris
• Area 67 m2
• Collaborators Studio N53
  

Originally organised as a one-bedroom apartment, the project rethinks the existing layout to create a second bedroom while preserving the generosity of the living space. Rather than increasing the apartment’s complexity, the intervention carefully redistributes the existing programme, allowing the apartment to accommodate new domestic needs while preserving its architectural identity.

The former kitchen is relocated to the living room, allowing its original space to become a second bedroom. This new organisation simplifies circulation and concentrates the shared functions within a single open space, where cooking, dining and living unfold around the existing fireplace.

The new kitchen is conceived as an architectural element rather than as a conventional collection of cabinets. A six-metre-long base with a warm bronze finish extends beneath the existing windows, integrating storage, appliances and work surfaces into a single continuous volume. By avoiding tall units, the original proportions of the room remain intact, allowing natural light, the historic mouldings and the fireplace to continue defining the character of the space.

Immediately beyond the entrance, a reflective metal-clad central volume becomes the organising element of the apartment. Accommodating the new bathroom together with the wardrobes of both bedrooms, it concentrates the service spaces into a compact core. Detached from the ceiling, the volume is perceived as a lightweight insertion rather than as a solid partition. Its reflective surfaces visually dissolve its presence within the apartment, preserving the generous proportions of the existing interior. Full-height sliding doors integrated into the volume close the bedrooms when required, providing privacy without interrupting the continuity of the interior.

Custom-designed steel shelving frames the original fireplace, creating a balanced composition that combines display, storage and the existing mirror into a single architectural feature. Rather than competing with the historic fireplace, the shelving reinforces it as the focal point of the living space while providing a place for books and everyday objects.

The original oak flooring is carefully restored and seamlessly extended where required with matching herringbone parquet, reinforcing the continuity between the existing architecture and the new intervention. Rather than redefining the apartment, the intervention reveals the qualities that were already there. Contemporary insertions remain deliberately discreet, allowing the generosity, light and character of the original Parisian interior to continue shaping everyday life.