Client: Private
Typology: Apartment
Place: Milan, Italy
Year: 2020.01
Sqm: 95
Architectural Design: ATOMAA
Design Team: Samantha Furlotti, Francesca Luci, Viviana
Ramires
Photography: Alberto Strada
General contractor: EDILBM GROUP SRL
Carpenter: Giacomo Moor

This is a close look at the walls of the house with built-in bookshelves and arches that blend together with the bight yellow walls.

This is a look at the living room that has a cushioned reading nook on the far side by the window with built-in miniature bookshelf under the window.

This is a far off look at the dining area with a wooden dining table by the window and a tall bookshelf by the entryway.

This is a close look at the dark marble sink of the kitchen that matches with the countertop.

This is a look at the home office with a couple of arched entryways and arched doors that open to the large desk.

This is a close look at the arched entryway with a couple of white doors that open to the home office.

This is another arched entryway that leads to the bedroom with a alrge bed and built-in bookshelf on the far side.

This is a look at the bathroom with pink walls and a wall-mounted artwork above the bathtub.

On the other side of the bathroom is the floating sink that is topped with a wall-mounted mirror.

This is a view of the apartment that is above the treetops of the area.

This is an illustration of the apartment's floor plan.

High above the treetops of one of the most beautiful streets in Milan, the sun fills an apartment with light, where functionality and aesthetics compete for the throne. The house, designed and built in the fall of 2019, narrates the story of those who live within: a young couple with a passion for reading, cinema, design and music.

The architectural project is tailored to the clients’ desires with precision and dedication: the environments retain their original nature but are distorted in aesthetics and colours. A partition divides the original room used for the kitchen, obtaining – on the one hand – a compact dining room characterized by decorative wallpaper, a legacy of British domestic spaces, and – on the other – a minimal, elegant and functional kitchen.

The existing living room, well defined by walls, corridors and a washroom, changes its face and becomes a large open space, characterized by a colourful floor in concrete grit, which creeps into every room. The space opens, through a sequence of large portals, towards the kitchen and dining room on one side, and towards a reading-nook and bow window, towards the other. The act of opening continues to the study/guest room through a series of large portal doors. The latter, however, completely integrated into a long bookcase, hides panels of an intense yellow, which provide a defined division between the entertainment and private spaces.

The bathroom is not a secondary environment: a real salle de bains has been designed with the aim of obtaining refined and tailor-made environments, coherently integrating the room intended for comfort services in the domestic space. The bathroom is divided into soft and fluid spaces that welcome a series of design objects carefully selected in partnership with the clients. The shower acts as a “passage” element that connects the master bathroom, accessible from the bedroom, to the secondary guest bathroom. This functional transition both eliminates additional distribution spaces to the services and filters the light coming from the master bathroom to the secondary bathroom, through the large integrated high level window.

The search for colour is fundamental in the design process: in this environment, pastel pink and dark green alternate elegantly, creating a bright contrast with the matte black finishes chosen for the taps, the profiles of the shower box, mirror and washbasin. Every detail has been evaluated and considered through a happy collaboration with the clients, another fundamental feature of the projects signed by ATOMAA.

The bedroom and the study, on the other hand, maintain their antique style, with the original recovered parquet floors. These two rooms are bound to the rest of the home through a number of arched portals which allow one to expand ones field of view and fill the home with natural light. The arch and the curve are certainly two key elements of the project: they can be found in the bathroom, in the furniture and in the internal doors in a playful interpretation of the
clients’ dreams.

The project, while not upsetting the original layout of the house, gives the new owners flexible spaces, brightness, wide fields of view and a succession of varied environments that are always in communication with each other.