French Metal Rack: Restored Paris Apartment by Marcante-Testa (UdA) Features a Clever Zoning System.

Holy guacamole! Once again, we’re off to Paris, the city where imagination runs wild and beautiful residential spaces are plentiful, and today’s home is no exception. This beautifully restored 180sqm, 1930s apartment is home to MilK Editor-In-Chief, Isis Colombe Combréas, her photographer partner, Karel Balas, and their two children. Completed in just three months, the restoration was managed by the inimitable Turin-based Marcante-Testa (UdA), who were briefed to rethink the communal areas in the apartment and make them more functional and open. The brief also called for new, more intimate private areas so that every member of the household could have their own separate space.

While Marcante-Testa (UdA) made some minor alterations to the walls, removing some and opening up others, the major design element used for the required zoning of public and private space was a matte black perforated metal rack system, inspired by French designer Mathiew Matégot. The system is moveable, with rotating arms that move through each space of the home.

While functional in purpose, the metal structure has the effect of a contemporary art installation, and gives the home a quirky decorative sensibility, which is carried through in the actual furniture selections like the Bold Chair by Moustache and Aim Lights by Flos. The racking system was handmade in Italy, and assembled on site over a two-week period. It is most effectively realised in the master ensuite, allowing a complete re-zoning of the master bedroom without altering its structure or impeding the flow of natural light.

The tight selection of finishes cap off this beauty of a home, including an unusual palette of muted peach walls, petrol blue resin flooring, olive green joinery, ash timber clad walls and crisp white fittings and fixtures. Overall, Marcante-Testa (UdA) has achieved an innovative and cutting edge design solution, which highlights rather than conceals the original geometry and character of the property. Major extreme love!

See more amazing projects by Marcante-Testa (UdA) on Yellowtrace.

[Images courtesy of UdA Architects. Photography by Karel Balas.]