A duplex high above Katameya, planned for evening — when the city is lit and the house is not.
A home this high is seen most at night, so it was designed for night first. The palette is held almost to black — marquina marble, dark quartzite, charcoal fluting — which means that after dark the windows disappear into the walls and the city outside becomes the brightest thing in the room.
Against that, only two things are allowed to move: fire and planting. The chimney breast is a full-height slab of stone lit from within, with a single line of flame at its base; the ceiling is cut through by thin slots of light that follow the geometry of the roof. The two floors share one palette on purpose, so the stair stops being a boundary and the duplex reads as one continuous room that happens to have two levels.
Two floors held to one palette so the stair stops being a boundary
Black marquina and dark quartzite, fluted charcoal timber, matt black joinery, pale wool and boucle, olive and burgundy velvet, an olive tree set into the terrace floor. The house is kept almost monochrome so that planting and fire are the only two things in it that move.
We accept a limited number of projects a year. If you are considering a house you will live in for the next twenty years, we would like to meet you.
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