Le Grand Marais Apartment

Le Grand Marais is a former 250sq data centre converted into a flat, located in a building dating from the 1970s on the outskirts of Le Marais in Paris. This building, belonging to the largest co-ownership in Paris, includes mixed programs of offices, housing, amphitheater, swimming pool, etc. The first challenge of this project was therefore to evoke the 1970s inside the flat.

Photography by © Yohan Fontaine

This was notably achieved through the choice of materials: the omnipresent plexiglass, colored metal joinery, iridescent curtains, concrete. Moreover, this loft is located on the ground floor and overlooks the covered circulation of the building. This is the great particularity of this space, which is almost blind, with no view of the outside and little light.

With this observation in mind, the project’s intention was to intensify this phenomenon rather than to come up against it. Thus, the layout and distribution of the spaces have been designed with a view to concentration and focus. A buffer space entrance with the exterior serves three bedrooms, a bathroom, and the living room while evoking an interior patio. The spaces are linked together, the material slides from one room to another, on the floor, on the wall, or even as furniture. The materials echo each other to offer identity and staging to the spaces and in particular to the blind rooms of the flat.

Photography by © Yohan Fontaine

In addition to the desire to make rigid spaces exuberant, the intensification of the project also involves the possibility for this space to be transformed to change its destination and become a showroom, a workplace, or a place of awakening thanks to its double kitchen, laundry, storage spaces, projection room/gymnasium and bedrooms that can easily be transformed into meeting rooms.

Photography by © Yohan Fontaine

Finally, the only substantial light entrance is located at the end of the flat where four skydomes are deployed. Here again, it is the intensification that is sought in the project: the terrace garden located above the premises enters through the zenithal bays to become a planted jardiniere until it drips into the flat. The whole project seeks to offer a dreamlike and self-sufficient universe.

Photography by © Yohan Fontaine

Project Info:
Architects: Ubalt architectes
Location: Paris, France
Area: 250 m²
Project Year: 2020
Photographs: Yohan Fontaine
Manufacturers: Balsan, Fantini, HAY, ACOVA, Florim