Author of the project: architect Fabiano Ravaglia, ahead of FPR Studio.
Property type: new apartment, recently built by the building developer.
Location: Icaraí, Niterói, RJ.
It is a complete project, including renovation and decoration, where all rooms were renovated.
Total project timeframe: two months for the project and six months for construction on-site.
Apartment’s total area: 95m².
What were the main changes (during the construction process and on the structure) needed to make the construction feasible: the client bought the apartment with an alternative floor plan including an option to open one of the bedrooms to the living area, which was done previously.
Profile of the resident: young lawyer around 30 years old, single with no children.
Project’s and client’s story: the client is an old friend and client of the architect, this one being the third one made for him and the first residential. Therefore, it is the client’s first residence, who used to live with his parents before and felt the need to move and invest in his own place not only to receive friends and family, but also future clients. Because the initial project brief was to impress, the architect had total creative freedom. So he chose sober colors and a diverse range of gray tones to contrast natural wood and create elegant and masculine spaces, with a lot of personality and rich in details. One of the biggest highlights of the project is the main wall of the living room that received exclusively designed frames as boiseries and two tones of paint coat with cement texture to create a contemporary rectangular graphic interference over a classical architecture reference.
Distribution and articulation between spaces after the renovation: the access to the apartment occurs through an entrance hallway that connects to the kitchen and a guest’s toilet. To the left is the narrow and long kitchen, which was integrated with the laundry area. Just ahead is the guest’s toilet, also narrow and long. The dining room is right beside it and has a rectangular glass table – material specially chosen to clear the room visually – with three-module decorative high shelves. The living room was duplicated in area since one of the bedrooms was eliminated from the original plan and allowed the placement of a large L-shape couch. In the back of this room, the carpentry work panel hides a revolving door that gives access to the bedrooms’ hall.
Social areas: guest’s toilet, living room, dining room and balcony.
Service areas: kitchen with integrated laundry room.
Bedrooms: guest’s suite (also multipurpose room) and master suite.
Décor style: contemporary, urban and elegant, with touches of youth and humor.
Main demands and needs from the client: the resident had only two requests to the architect: to create a gourmet countertop on the balcony and the inclusion of a vintage cabinet in the living area. These requests were easily attended with a countertop that organizes all kinds of equipment (minibar, beer fridge, grill with volcanic stone, induction cooktop, exhaustion hood, sink, kitchen tap and soap dispenser) and a vintage cabinet with glass doors and shelves (Vetrina model, by Cinex) that was fixed on the wall and centered over a wooden piece of furniture designed by the architect, also suspended on the wall, in order to be used as a buffet table. Beside it, there are two other suspended modules, also exclusively designed by the architect using the same material as the previous one, only one functions as bar and the other as side table.
Main idea for the interior design project: to be timeless, therefore, free of trends, filled with an urban contemporary soul, ready to respond to the demands of a practical, connected and automated life.
Proposed solutions, room by room:
· Kitchen: the layout was irreversible due to the building limitations of the apartment, so the corridor-kitchen had to remain in the same position and shape. Therefore, the architect created a type of calacata quartz box with suspended cabinets that had two different depths. So he could manage to break the excessive linear carpentry work and minimize the narrow and long feeling of the space. The higher cabinets (near the ceiling and used as pantry) received blue lacquer finish; the cabinets over the countertop received lacquer finish that mimics brushed steel plate. At last, the lower cabinets received natural wooden finish that dialogues with the living room furniture.
· Guest’s toilet: designed to be a burnt cement box, material applied to the floor, the walls and the ceiling. Therefore, all attention goes to the wooden panel – which exhibits a vertical cut for lighting – and to the exclusively designed-by-the-architect sink full of details carved into a raw piece of travertine marble. The matt black finish – latest trend for bathrooms – is present on the lighting fixtures, on the ceiling and on the bathroom pieces and equipment.
· Living room: the previous living room had another layout, so the architect removed one of the rooms to open more space and built part of a wall using drywall in order to install a 60” tv and fix a suspended rack without compromising the circulation of the social area. Therefore, it was also possible placing a large L-shape couch and an extremely confortable round armchair upholstered with denim and sweatshirt. The composition created by the black wired coffee table along with caramel leather pouf give a more masculine vibe to the whole project. Coated with natural wood finish the new drywall also hides the revolving door that gives access to the bedrooms. The back wall received cement sheets as homogeneous finish.
· Dining room: three hollow modular shelves – ideal for plant, objects and book display – serve as background in this space. The glass dining table has caramel leather chairs, Italian steel and opaque glass chandeliers and a organic-shaped wall mirror reinforce the light atmosphere giving enough room for the living area to be the one and only star of the social space.
· Balcony: originally there was a brick barbecue pit in this space that was eliminated to give room for a vertical garden with automatic irrigation system. On the opposite side a well-equipped gourmet countertop was designed to attend a client’s need. The flooring was completely renovated with wooden textured porcelain tiles creating an even warmer and welcoming place. To minimize intense sunlight in the evening the architect appealed to glass curtains, solar screen blinds and air-conditioning.
· Guest’s suite: even though it is very narrow, the room was designed to be multipurpose, working as home office, home theater, closet and guest’s room. The sofa bed was tailor-made to fit in between the window and the access to the bathroom. Behind it there’s a floor-to-ceiling set of shelves, made of niches and doors to help the client organize his books and documents. The flooring was made of burnt cement in a color similar to living room floor.
· Master suite: a wooden carpentry panel creates the head end of the bed along with caramel leather modules, maintaining the same tones used in the living room. The curtains are made of light beige linen, turning the room warmer and the patchwork carpet gives the room personality.
· Master suite’s bathroom: completely renovated this space received flooring and walls finishes in big formats (60x120cm) to reduce the number of grouting. On the floor the architect used porcelain tiles in the same tone of the kitchen’s flooring. On the walls it was used porcelain tile with Carrara marble pattern in most of them except for the wall behing the toilet, which received special coat of Supernan Glass.
Considerations on the social and private areas’ floorings: the floor on the social area is covered with extra thin porcelain 1x1meter tiles from Spanish brand Inalco. The floor on the private area is covered with a continuous burnt cement 3mm layer from Spanish brand Cement Design.
Lighting project: designed by the architect.
What do you like the most about this project as a professional: “I like the textures’ mix in the living room between the floor with dark gray porcelain tile and walls that alter between two-tones of burnt cement, wood and concrete sheets. They were essential to create this desired timeless atmosphere.
Photographer: Denilson Machado, from MCA Estúdio.
