Apartment as a Captain’s Cabin
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The project Riviera Cabin consists in the renovation of a studio apartment in a Ligurian coastal town La Spezia. The client’s request was to reorganize the 35 square meters in order to divide the environment into living and sleeping areas. The nautical culture that characterizes this region in Italy was fundamental to the development of this project. The optimization of storage spaces inside sailboats and the minimum dimensions within these spaces were the inspiration for the development of the project.
An “equipped wall” crosses the interior of the apartment, containing several functions. It accompanies, like a path, the visitor from the entrance to the living area, the heart of the house. In the vestibule, the less deep wall houses a small technical room, as well as the primary storage space. You continue on with a small dressing room / wardrobe, where you can undress, leaving the day behind. This brings you to the living area onto which, as in a square, the sleeping area, structured on two levels, overlooks.
The master bedroom is accessible through two large doors and its interior – conceived almost like the inside of a whale’s ribcage – is wrapped by structural wooden ribs. This room, just like a cabin, contains the essentials; a king-size bed and minimal storage space.
The final part of the wall, through a small portico, leads to the second night space that one reaches through a steep staircase, as if climbing up a mansard of a small fisherman’s house. The small openings that give light to the room are designed as windows overlooking the living area.
The “equipped wall”, made of okoumé (also known as marine plywood), is laminated in white and blue. And the continuity between hull and sky is interrupted by the waterline that leads the eye from the entrance along the entire apartment.
The kitchen, located at the end of the walkway + waterline, is stretched slightly like a sail inflated by the wind.
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