In Favour of Flux: Maison Molaire in Geneva by Bureau.

In an almost vaudevillian series of spatial acts, Maison Molaire becomes the perfect backdrop for what American Architect Mary Otis Stevens called ‘the flux of human life’, the idea that people are neither in constant motion, nor pure standstill as they move through day-to-day life. For Geneva-based designers and spatial practitioners Bureau, the 120-square-metre ex-dental practice posed no issue in translating the clinical, to the somewhat theatrical, and creating a space that offers both activation and rest to the contemporary and dynamic family housed within.

Originally designed as a mixed-use building in the early 1980s, housing artists’ studios, commercial spaces and living quarters, the building framework is light-filled and not limited by structural elements, welcoming the brightness brought on by skylights and the sweeping windows that enclose the apartment. With little to no formal partitions, we see curtain railings flossed through the space, catering to the programmatic requirements within.

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The user can go straight from shower to sheets, as the bubblegum pink shower curtain separates the bathroom from the bedroom in one fell swoop. The bedroom perimeter is defined by modular white storage shelves, filled with books and records that result in a softening of the bedroom ‘walls’. These shelving units are repeated in the dining and living space and act as spatial partitions that allow for more visibility than the ceiling-height curtains, which have been used in a similar fashion.

Throughout Maison Molaire, the almost Neapolitan-toothpaste colour palette of pink, cobalt blue and red has been curated and blocked over a plywood canvas, with highlights of stainless steel and pastel square tiling that hint at its former life as a dental office. This is most evident in the kitchen, where a semblance of a commercial kitchen tricks the viewer into thinking that perhaps something more than a home-cooked meal might arise from the burners.

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The clinical square tiles further support this aesthetic and can be seen throughout the apartment, both in the wet areas as well as cleverly integrated in the furniture design. The pink multi-purpose dining table has been topped with said square tiles, repeated around the bathtub and across splashbacks.

However, each space has a clear yet simultaneously flexible program and purpose, and although the colour and material palette appear airy and somewhat modernist, they are quietly juxtaposed with the homely softness of the plywood floors and the perceived avoirdupois of the cobalt curtains and Persian rug. Just like the flux of human life, the design team at Bureau have managed to perfectly balance the materials and meanings in each space of Maison Molaire, to create a stage for all family members to play their part in the character development exercise we call life.

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[Images courtesy of Bureau. Photography by Dylan Perrenoud.]