The O&A London design studio created this project for a young family with a small child. They’d already been our clients before — we did their apartment two years ago. This building is located thirty kilometres away from the city centre.
There were two buildings on the ground plot — although only the exterior walls remained from the original design. The entire space has been rethought and replanned. Our brief was to leave the existing structure in place and use it to create the feeling of a European family home — where the painting collection owned by the clients could be harmoniously displayed.
The approach to space was similar to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam — which walls, in complex shades of grey, make the perfect background for paintings. The final result was an interior in where the bureau succeeded in creating a lyrical space in which traditional artworks and antiques, collected from many world journeys, sit perfectly alongside modern furniture, materials and architecture.
The designers aimed to make their involvement as unobtrusive as possible — so that whichever room you visit, the main feeling you have is of the personal style and taste of the clients. A unique element in the project is elegant, though bold-structured staircase, which was tailor-made to individual designs — and which is topped by the world’s most spectacular chandelier.
The house is full of guest rooms — which enabled the designers to a playful approach and allowed to use light and an infinite choice of William Morris wallpaper to create a number of different alternative worlds… which lead us back into the Pre-Raphaelite era.
The Master zone, for the owners, is a magnificently engaging space, with its bay window and entrancing textile wallpaper v and leads off into two separate his and her bathrooms. Each reflects a different aspect of the owners’ personalities. These are the only rooms in the house where marble is featured.
The clients are regular mountain-skiers, and take inspiration from Alpine architecture — and wanted to recreate something similar in their own home. This is how the guest-house became transformed into a Spa, as the clients requested. Beams are lining the ceilings, aged wooden walls with a smoked-larch hue, and architecturally-exceptional portals poured from liquid concrete. The finishing touch is the tall fireplace with an antique firewood-box.
