Enlarging spaces is like expanding the mind, it is about finding new stimuli, ways to enrich the everyday. B+P Architetti has a very personal approach to designing contemporary living, it does so thinking that every corner is a story, every colour a flying carpet for dreams, every line a bridge between where we come from and where we have always hoped to live.
The home designed by the Prato studio for a young family in an elegant 1970s apartment block in Florence summarises these coordinates, explores materials and compositions, and while taking trends into account manages to shape a highly personal narrative in which furniture, fabrics, palettes and lighting reflect the owners’ history and personality.
The restyling begins by demolishing the old distribution of spaces, a long corridor facing the various rooms, to create a single body of 150 square metres fluidly connected in its various parts: living room, kitchen, a study, two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a laundry room. The flat on the third floor is now a dynamic, spacious open space, flooded with natural light; a wall of coloured niches frames the access to the kitchen (Delinea by Scavolini), which remains connected to the living room through a full-height opening with no window frames. The design is nourished by the cultural crossroads that characterises the family and brings together Puglia and Sicily, two lands as lively and warm as the palette chosen to emphasise the depth of the recesses and some of the walls. As pragmatic as they are, the architects opt for precious finishes, refined complements that translate the nature of expectations. Even the study becomes a magic compartment to be discovered behind a mirrored door that slides outwards, overlapping the niches, a natural pedestal for the precious collection of Pumas from Puglia and Moors from Sicily. Opposite, as in a dialogue, other furnishings populate the subtle essence of Cattelan Italia’s Airport bookcase. In the living room, sofas overlook a custom-made Canaletto walnut cabinet that insinuates itself into a plasterboard structure, the casket of a bio-fireplace, a modern domestic hearth.
French herringbone oak parquet flooring is the chosen skin for the entire flat, which brings out the penetration of natural light from the east-facing windows. The dining area stands out against three large arches designed ad hoc for wallpaper that deliberately recall the metaphysical dimension of de Chirico’s paintings.
The sleeping area plays on minimalism: clean lines and pastel tones for the master bedroom, while a ring of intense blue envelops the head of the bed and transports the little inhabitant’s imagination into incredible spatial adventures. The bathrooms pay homage to green, especially the one in the living area deprived of the window for the game of reworking spaces. In the shower cubicle a riot of palm trees, an effect of the shiny ceramic cladding, suggests a luminous greenhouse, a concept which in the bathroom attached to the rooms fades into an abstract pattern with the chromatic curves of the forest.
CREDITS
Design: B+P Architetti
Location: Firenze
Year: 2024
Photographer: Darragh Hehir
