Jardin du Luxembourg Loft

This family house and former printing press workshop is located in an inner courtyard block, adjacent to Paris' Luxembourg Garden. The site is a calm, green oasis within the city's urban fabric, buffered by five and six story apartment buildings surrounding the property. Converted into housing in the late nineties, the house had since fallen into disrepair and required extensive works to restore the structure, reorganise incoherencies and bring out the house's unique character.

The 250m² property has exceptionally rare and sought after qualities for an inner city residential Parisian property; featuring two gardens and seven metre high, cathedral ceilings.

These remarkable qualities informed the spatial composition. A sequence of spaces was imagined as an architectural journey to discover and live the property to its fullest. Following this journey takes you through spaces of markedly varied proportion, intimacy, texture, light, shadow and vegetation.

Throughout the public spaces, visual unity was embraced with brushed venetian limestone floors that provide a sensual and subtle harmony necessary to transition from the intentionally sombre entrance hall to the expansive, sun drenched living area. To distinguish from public and private areas, rough-sawn oak floorboards were used in the bedrooms, walk-in wardrobes, office and other intimate shared spaces. Subtle burnished brass detailing is also used throughout the house, further underlining visual unity.