The Edge Apartment | Clément Lesnoff-Rocard

The Edge Apartment is located on the top two floors of an 80’s building in Paris, this penthouse struck me on the first visit with two extremely strong characteristics:

1. Suspended just above the line ridge of the famous Parisian rooftops, this space gave me this very specific feeling that you have when you find yourself on a cliff, attracted by its edge, mesmerized by the beauty of the landscape and quietly terrified of falling down. Intense. This had to be a topic to work with for me, this edge.

2. The building itself, on a bigger scale and on its outside skin, had this singularity of having a super flat façade skirting the straight boulevard downstairs. But inside, all the plans of the apartment units were organized slantwise with quite a strong angle to the boulevard, like if someone pushed too hard on the edge of the building, bending everything inside so you can nearly never face any neighbor and creating unusual and sharp angles in the floor plan. Straight skin with twisted bones: edgy.

So I decided to work around this idea of the edge, from a metaphorical point of view as much as from a physical and literal point of view. Finding and creating here a physical grammar of the edge and welcoming a landscape of edges: The edge can look soft with a gentle curve while being made of solid concrete or it can look sharp and hard while being made of foam boards. The edge can bring the outside in with bay windows or it can take your inside thoughts out into the sky through roof windows.

The edge can contrast between black wood and white paint or it can gently nuance between white marble and white concrete. Each material exists in a space not by its own nature but only thanks to the conversation with the material next to it. Concrete can look soft, textured, and sensual when composed with a white painted wall while it can look hard and slick when topped by a fluffy shaggy pillow. The edge can invite you to come upstairs with a light portal or it can push you away from the center of the room with a massive angular block. The edge can close with a wall or open with a mirror.

The edge is like the present: being everything without even existing.

As a creator, I strive to extend the edge of my own knowledge in every new story.

As a human being, I am just happy with the present, embracing this edge as it is.

Project Info
Architects: Clément Lesnoff-Rocard
Country: France, Paris
Area: 105 m²
Year: 2022
Photographs: Laurent Kronental
Wood Joinery: RCPM
General Contractor: Helder & Vitor Jacinto