A Family Apartment in Paris by Atelier Apara is a Study in Calibrated Contrasts

Words by Yatzer

26 February 2026

A Family Apartment in Paris by Atelier Apara is a Study in Calibrated Contrasts

Words by Yatzer

26 February 2026

Soulful Dwellings

Paris, France

In Paris’ 14th arrondissement, within a residential building dating from the 1970s–80s, Atelier Apara has reimagined a 93-square-metre family apartment with the calibrated restraint that defines the practice. Led by co-founders Charlotte Guillochon and Victor Mesguich, the studio approaches renovation as an act of revelation rather than embellishment, pairing structural honesty with material precision. Completed in 2026, the project embodies this ethos through a careful balance of raw surfaces, refined detailing and purposeful colour.

A restrained 1970s residential façade in Paris frames Atelier Apara’s Sarette renovation, its pale concrete grid punctuated by recessed balconies and white balustrades. Bare winter branches soften the rigid geometry, while a modest courtyard with reflecting pool foregrounds the building’s quiet modernist austerity and contextual urban character.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

The dining area is framed by raw concrete walls and pale parquet flooring, where a round glass table with tubular chrome legs anchors the space. A white conical pendant descends from a surface-mounted conduit, while okoumé cabinetry and green-veined marble surfaces introduce warmth against the mineral backdrop.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

A minimalist living room pairs a low, tufted charcoal sofa with a circular glass table on tubular steel legs. Raw concrete walls and a floating metal shelf establish a restrained industrial backdrop, while generous windows and balcony doors draw in muted daylight, amplifying the apartment’s calm spatial rhythm. — Photography by Philippe Billard.

Tasked with expanding a three-room apartment into a four-room home, the team radically rethought the layout, most notably by concentrating circulation and technical functions within a single built volume at the heart of the plan, from which everything else radiates. Coated in high-gloss green paint, it is the project’s most decisive move. Practically, it organises movement between the two rear bedrooms and the living areas and master suite at the front, while accommodating a bathroom, lavatory and study nook. Visually, its reflective surface captures and redistributes natural light toward the apartment’s darker areas.

The high-gloss green finish forms part of a thoughtfully calibrated palette of contrasting materials and textures that defines the apartment’s character. Underpinning this tension is the juxtaposition between the carefully restored and extended original parquet flooring, which provides a sense of continuity, against the raw, exposed concrete walls that embrace imperfection as an aesthetic language.

The apartment’s glossy green core appears as a sculptural insertion within the open plan. Its reflective lacquered surface captures daylight, while a translucent curtain suspended from ceiling tracks softens the transition. A stainless steel stool and built-in shelving reinforce the project’s industrial-modernist sensibility. — Photography by Philippe Billard.

A detail of the green volume highlights its high-gloss finish, punctuated by subtle reflections of window light. Adjacent, a sheer textured curtain filters views toward exposed concrete walls, emphasising Atelier Apara’s contrast between chromatic boldness and raw material restraint.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

A narrow passage beside the green core reveals a perforated wooden screen with circular cut-outs, allowing glimpses of the kitchen beyond. The interplay of transparency and opacity, concrete and lacquer, exemplifies the apartment’s layered spatial choreography and measured material contrasts.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

The living space unfolds around exposed concrete volumes and honey-toned parquet flooring, anchored by a glossy green built-in unit. Bauhaus-inflected furniture—chrome-framed seating and a glass coffee table—introduces industrial elegance, while potted monstera plants soften the mineral palette with biophilic accents. — Photography by Philippe Billard.

Warm okoumé wardrobe doors stand opposite the vivid green built-in unit, their natural grain softening the apartment’s industrial edges. The parquet floor extends seamlessly between zones, while metal shelving and discreet conduits underscore the project’s economy of means and structural clarity.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

The glossy green built-in unit unfolds as a recessed shelving niche, its reflective lacquer amplifying depth. Slim metal conduits run vertically within the alcove, merging infrastructure with display. Books and minimal objects punctuate the vivid backdrop, reinforcing the apartment’s disciplined yet expressive industrial-modernist language.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

Photography by Philippe Billard.
Photography by Philippe Billard.
Photography by Philippe Billard.

The kitchen is composed as a precise industrial tableau: okoumé cabinetry, green-veined marble countertops and floating metal shelves set against exposed concrete. A perforated timber divider punctuated with green-lined openings introduces depth, while a glass dining table reflects the disciplined material palette. — Photography by Philippe Billard.

Okoumé plywood cabinetry and wall panelling, a material more commonly associated with boatbuilding than interior design, introduces handcrafted warmth in across the property, while green-veined marble used in the kitchen for countertops, backsplash and shelving adds a quietly luxuriant note. Mounted on slender threaded rods with visible bolts, the marble shelving, also found in the living room, further accentuates the dialogue between utility and elegance.

The same utilitarian sensibility runs throughout, from exposed metallic cable ducts tracing the walls and ceiling lines to powder-coated steel shelving brackets and toggle light switches set within metal faceplates. Lighting follows the same logic, with conical metal pendants and pared-back fixtures emphasising clarity over flourish, as does the furniture; Bauhaus-inflected pieces such as chrome-framed chairs, glass-topped tables and a Marcel Breuer Wassily lounge chair embrace a form-follows-function ethos, reinforcing the apartment’s restrained industrial cadence.

Close-up of the perforated okoumé partition highlights its rhythmic grid of circular openings, framing glimpses of the glossy green structure behind. The warm timber grain contrasts with the smooth lacquer and adjacent concrete wall, embodying Atelier Apara’s dialogue between handcrafted tactility and modernist precision.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

A wider view reveals the kitchen’s spatial choreography: parquet flooring extends beneath marble-topped islands and dark timber cabinetry, while the perforated screen stands like a sculptural divider. The saturated green built-in volume beyond anchors the scene, its lacquered surface catching light against the apartment’s restrained industrial envelope.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

The kitchen composition foregrounds green-veined marble worktops against raw concrete walls, their mineral textures set in deliberate tension. Okoumé cabinetry with recessed pulls introduces warmth, while a perforated timber screen with circular cut-outs filters views toward the glossy green core, layering transparency, colour and material contrast.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

Photography by Philippe Billard.
Photography by Philippe Billard.
Photography by Philippe Billard.
Photography by Philippe Billard.

Looking through the green volume toward the living area, the apartment’s spatial layering becomes evident. Chrome-framed seating, a low modular sofa and potted plants sit beneath wide horizontal windows, while parquet floors and raw concrete walls sustain the project’s balance between industrial rigour and domestic warmth.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

The bedroom unfolds as a compact alcove, elevated on a timber platform above a vivid blue floor. Exposed concrete ceiling and walls meet white curtains that diffuse daylight, while pared-back shelving and okoumé panels maintain the project’s disciplined material palette and emphasis on spatial economy.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

A detail of the bedroom headboard highlights warm okoumé plywood set against raw concrete. Integrated metal reading lights and minimalist switch plates underscore the apartment’s utilitarian precision, while crisp white bedding softens the tactile contrast between timber grain and mineral texture.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

Adjustable wall-mounted shelving combines dark timber boards with white steel brackets fixed to exposed concrete. Overhead, a linear blue light fixture punctuates the ceiling plane, introducing a chromatic accent that echoes the bedroom’s blue flooring and reinforces the project’s calibrated use of colour.

Photography by Philippe Billard.

The one room where the tonal discipline gives way to a more assertive expression is the main bathroom where the cool, almost clinical precision, of the stainless-steel cabinetry and washbasin is offset by vibrant blue mosaic tiling. Despite its chromatic intensity, this space nevertheless deftly adheres to the scheme’s calibrated balance between rawness and refinement.

Across the apartment, Atelier Apara demonstrate what has become a consistent thread in their work: the idea that restraint and economy of means need not produce neutral results. By leaning into the contrast between raw and refined, industrial and intimate, and economical and exquisite, they have created a considered and characterful home within tight constraints.