A 45-square-meter Parisian apartment near the popular Canal Saint-Martin has been cleverly redesigned by the architectural duo Lagoa Architecture, transforming a compartmentalized space into a modern living area that prioritizes entertaining and cooking. The renovation project, guided by custom carpentry and the use of both unique and contemporary materials, demonstrates how small urban spaces can be optimized for today's lifestyle needs.
The apartment, located on the fifth floor of a 1900 building in Paris's highly sought-after 10th arrondissement, benefits from excellent natural light that flows through the entire space from end to end. However, the original layout poorly suited the lifestyle of its owner, a thirty-something cooking enthusiast who found the compartmentalized interior inadequate for entertaining guests. The existing configuration featured a street-facing bedroom with balcony, a courtyard-facing living room, and a kitchen relegated to an overly small separate room.
Florence Vita and Christophe Gourdier of Lagoa Architecture completely reimagined the space to better reflect contemporary living patterns and the owner's daily rhythms. Their primary objective was to bring the previously isolated kitchen to the center of daily use while reducing the bedroom to a more secondary role. "Our client spends very little time in his bedroom and doesn't work there. So we transformed it into a more compact space," the architects explain.
The renovation preserved the apartment's original charm, maintaining the decorative moldings, original parquet flooring, and historic fireplace. The new layout features a large kitchen open to a dining area that can accommodate up to eight guests, a living room now equipped with a terrace, and a smaller, quieter bedroom facing the courtyard. This reorganization maximized the living spaces while creating a more fluid, adult-oriented apartment.
To exploit the abundant natural light to its fullest potential, Lagoa Architecture employed transparency as a key design element, allowing sunlight to filter through all the rooms. "There was this possibility of giving depth to the field of vision, from the balcony all the way to the bedroom. This characteristic was particularly important to us because having light everywhere creates an even stronger sense of space," the architects note.
The doors were ingeniously crafted from PMMA, a dense and resistant plastic typically used in industrial applications, but repurposed here for residential renovation. "When we contacted the manufacturer to make carpentry with PMMA, he was quite surprised," the duo reveals. The owner was initially skeptical about using plastic instead of the more traditional glass, but was ultimately won over by the final result and the significant cost difference between the two materials.
These industrial glass-like openings create an ultra-modern industrial aesthetic while meeting budget, manufacturing, and longevity requirements. "The idea was to use this fairly lightweight material to maintain fineness in the frames. It's also easier for the carpenter to install and allows us to create a slightly frosted texture, which provides intimacy for the bedroom and living room when the doors are closed," explain the architects. These unique openings have become the apartment's signature feature.
Wood serves as the unifying element throughout the different spaces, creating visual continuity across the renovation. "What gives this apartment its character are its ceiling moldings and original parquet floor, which we didn't touch," notes Lagoa Architecture. "To preserve these elements, we kept the partitions and added beech wood to the door frames." The same beech wood was used in the kitchen, treated with green oil to color the lower cabinets according to the owner's taste.
The kitchen features ceramic stoneware that functions as both countertop and backsplash, chosen for its durability and budget-friendly qualities. The bathroom reflects the same tonal palette, combining light wood panels with sandy terrazzo finishes. The material choices create a cohesive aesthetic that bridges contemporary design with the apartment's historic character.
"We maximized the living spaces and gained a lot of volume," conclude the architects. "We now have a real living room separate from the kitchen, a large dining room that can accommodate up to eight people, and a living space that can be transformed into a guest room." The result is a small space perfectly adapted to contemporary urban living, demonstrating how thoughtful design can transform even the most compact Parisian apartments into functional, stylish homes that prioritize both daily comfort and entertaining capabilities.
