Graphic Designers' Retro-Modern Compact Apartment, Milan 60sqm-645sqft

The clients are two young graphic designers in love with the world of shapes and colours very, very open-minded and this is a very nice thing for an architect I always try to tell the clients that they can find a treasure already there inside the house I'm speaking about the history of the house, no? This was the case of the flooring These concrete tiles that we polished they are from the 40s So you can read even on the flooring what was the story My name is Umberto and together with Cesare and Andrea we founded Atoma It is an architectural office based in Milan and Edinburgh This building was built in the 20s It has typical elements of that age Outside it has this yellow colour They call it Milanese yellow Since it's very, very foggy they used to paint this building in a very strong colour so it was visible during the foggy days This building is located in what we call Città Studi It is a very special place for the city of Milan It was built at the beginning of the 19th century As Italians, since we are born we are used to walk in spaces and cities that are full of history, no? So that's why often in design you find this mix of old things that have a value and new things that have new values When we entered we saw at first a very long corridor a beautiful heritage, materially speaking It was in a way dark since it has only three windows and they were all facing north They had many requests, believe me They wanted a house that could be a very convivial place One of the things that Martina asked it was about arches She was in love with arches and so we decided to put some of them even inside the house They asked for a place for working at home It was a place where to have breakfast and possibly working possibly facing the outside world and the city It was a strange L-shaped plan so it could be a design issue and so the space it was completely divided The first action was to shorten the corridor We removed the partition wall that was dividing it by the living room It gave the occasion to rediscover a hidden pillar that was inside the wall In the bedroom we added a walk-in wardrobe directly connected to the bathroom and left this space over it for reading a book for hosting some friends when they stay late at night after a dinner Japan It's a delicious puzzle of contradictions So delicious, in fact that we've dedicated an entire issue of our magazine to it But this is not the Japan you might expect In issue 3 we go beyond the Golden Turd to explore the art of bending space and light with architect Takeshi Hosaka and Paul Smith's 40-plus-year love affair with Japan We ask how legendary product designer Naoto Fukasawa finds the essence of an object while also celebrating the Japanese-born art form of chindogu that is, designing almost useless gadgets And, of course, there are new compact Japanese small homes to fall in love with, too There's so much more inside including a double-sided pull-out poster featuring original artwork and a city guide curated by creative Tokyo locals Get your copy now Visit nevertosmall.com slash store The interest in actual design it is, in a way, forgotten but it is one of the most important places of the house On the right part of it you find a shoe rack If you lower the space you have a compression space and then the apartments open up just together with the light You can find a hidden closet to hide big stuff Just in front of this space we created a little study And this is the place where Nicolò, who is a graphic designer does his paintings and spends evenings in creating art The space of the living room is made of simple formal elements A long French window that is set on a corner The concrete pillar On the other side, the pantry with its yellow arch The television and the library Making this renovation we had a surprise removing a wall that was dividing the corridor from the living room We found this rough pillar This creates a nice fight between two different materialities The roughness of the concrete The tiles are super polished The kitchen is a single element made of blue metal with stainless steel And the walls of the kitchen are covered with these white tiles that in a way resemble an image of an industrial-style kitchen In this kitchen you can find a dishwasher, an oven and a full-size fridge together with a lot of space for stacking stuff When you want to build a space that is together living room and kitchen what you have to do is to try to find a place to put the messy things We added the volume which is the pantry A yellow curtain gives a lot of playfulness In that place, the clients hide all the things related to the kitchen Even the laundry is there The clients requested a little corner to put their coffee machines It is a custom-made furniture The corner is a very important thing when you design a volume That's why we decided on one corner to put a library that gives spaciality When you are going to the bathroom you step up The moving of the bathroom needed a space for the plumbing This gave even the occasion to compress and hide the space This is another experience that is very important in a house the change of levels The creation of this space allowed Martina and Niccolo to work together at home in two different spaces To make the bathroom look larger we decided to design it lower in height So in terms of proportion this little trick makes the space look larger We have a generous blue shocking vanity It is full of space and it is characterized by these giant white handles that give it a crazy design We always try to have windows looking at the official windows of the house You can find two portals This gives a nice luminosity to the bathroom The bedroom is located at the end of the apartment When you walk under this arch you can find another world that speaks another language Since the tilings resemble the 20s and the 30s we had the occasion to give hierarchy to this space by adding a volume made of wood and made of hay rattan It's all handmade The rattan maker he teaches a lot of things to us about how to use this material It gives the opportunity to add transparency to some part of this volume It is as low as possible so it can give the person an intimacy We added two lead strips They are integrated in the design We gave the bathroom two different entrances The main one is dedicated to visitors There is a second one that is directly bounded to the bedroom This volume gives an extra space over it It can be used for reading a book for hosting some friends after a dinner that went long I can say that it is my most favorite place of Gino, the third inhabitant of this house My perfect home is a place where you can hug your friends and make noise and have parties The place where I feel protected You can find the time to think I think that these are the main things that a house should give to a person Thanks for watching If you're an architect or designer with a project we could feature please share it with us at www.nevertosmall.com