Two 23-year-old Designers Reimagine a 59sqm/635sqft Paris Apartment
For twenty-three-year-old designers Yosua Grunitzky and John Trippel, opportunity presented itself by the way of a run-down apartment that Grunitzky’s family owns in the heart of Paris’s 8th arrondissement, next to the Pont de l’Alma. “This apartment belongs to Yosua’s family”, Trippel explained. “When we had the opportunity to combine our talents and renovate the apartment, we felt extremely privileged”. Friends since childhood, Grunitzky, an architect, and Trippel, an interior designer and founder of woodworking studio Resta, combined their specific areas of expertise to completely reimagine the cluttered space into the open and modern Marceau 6.
Tucked among the rich historical heritage that the 8th arrondissement is known for, the attic apartment is located in a small six-storey building constructed in 1910. The apartment had been vacant for several years by the time Grunitzky and Trippel began their renovation, and it exhibited some of the signs of ageing and disrepair that can come with untended spaces. The 59sqm/635sqft footprint was divided in a more typical and traditional Parisian style, with three separate bedrooms off a long corridor leading to a small kitchenette and bathroom at the back.
A Small Space with a Grand Feeling
Few traces of the former space remained once Grunitzky and Trippel had completed their renovation, which saw all interior walls except for one removed. This remaining wall was put to good use, extended across the entire width of the apartment to separate the more private bed and bath areas from the open-concept living and dining zone. It worked toward the duo’s intent to create what they described as “a small space with a grand feeling” and equally somewhere calming, that would blur out all the stress that might come with the high activity and movement around Paris. For Grunitzky’s part, it also felt like an opportunity to really express his own taste: “Having a West African background, there’s a common practice of holding onto and having many objects sitting around the house, which pushed me to the extreme opposite: minimalism and simplicity”.
Every detail, from the cohesive wood grain to the organic-shaped furnishings, confirms that they met their target. You enter into a spacious living, dining, and kitchen area with oak parquet en point de hongrie – “an emblematic type of flooring in Paris”, Grunitzky noted – underfoot. A small built-in wardrobe immediately opposite the entrance creates a subtle division so that the kitchen isn’t the first thing on view. To your left is a full-length mirror with rounded edges, cut to match, or quite literally mirror, the windows lining the opposite wall. These set the tone for what’s to come in the room, which features furnishing old and new, including: custom-built dining and coffee tables (created from the same slab of wood, we might add); walnut cupboards, shelves, and acoustic panelling; and the original fireplace and radiators, restored and repainted in the same forest green hue.
Thought in Every Detail
Most impressive of all, perhaps, is that much of what you see was crafted by the duo themselves: “Everything in this apartment except the couch, the puff, and the dining chair was either refurbished or designed and built by us”, Trippel told Never Too Small. They explained how this decision was made at least in part by the limited resources available to them but parallel to this was a desire to honour the historical features of the apartment; to complement the specificities of the small space with pieces that played into its attributes while keeping things simple.
The bed, for example, floats on a custom mid-century modern–style frame, which they positioned so the Eiffel tower would be the first thing you see when you wake up, while a row of built-in cupboards in the living room help to balance the asymmetrical placement of the fireplace. And while both of these serve as examples of how they worked with existing features; others – like the bedroom door that looks like one of the kitchen cabinets – illustrate how thoughtfully they created new features that feel true to the home: “Designing a small space can be challenging because every square metre has to be carefully considered in terms of functionality. But it's beautiful, because when well-executed, you can feel how much thought went into every little detail”.
