A house on the beach in Deauville in soft wood, embellished with stainless steel steel.
We are in Deauville, in a “Neonormanna” residence, as he defines it Baptiste Legué. The house is one of those located along the beach, built after the war and entirely in concrete. “External architecture gives the impression of having a Norman atmosphere, but in reality it is a building from the 60s, whose apartments have the advantage of being open space,” explains the interior designer and founder of his homonymous study. This advantage has allowed its team to easily reinvent the arrangement of this Pied-to-Terre of 90 square metersowned by a couple who wanted to escape from the chaos of Paris.
An open and intelligent design
“The owners wanted an open space, functional and suitable for contemporary life. To achieve this result, we completely opened the apartment, before partially demanding it”. With “Partially”, Baptiste Legué refers to the arrangement that acts as a partition or dividers, giving the living area a lot of natural light without real masonry walls from the floor to the ceiling. Made entirely of veneered wood, This arrangement gives the ground floor a warm and spacious atmosphereletting the sea glimpse through the game of heights. In the entrance corridor, in particular, this intelligent design not only hides the technical elements such as the closet and the toilet, but also lets glimpse the beach below.
Wood, cement and stainless steel
In the living room, wooden modules define the kitchen, living room and dining room, which are at the same time connected and separated from each other. “All these spaces share a common volume,” explains Baptiste Legué, “and the guiding thread is wood. We wanted to reinterpret the atmosphere of Normandy, so we remained on rather sandy tones, from beige to gray, heated by wood”. Stainless steel was used in the kitchen to counter general softness, bringing out a rough material. A more brutalist note, which contrasts effectively with the organic design of the cemented concrete top that runs along the entire kitchen; cement that is also found on the floor, recalling the shades of the nearby beach.
In this spirit, the staircase has been designed with softer lines than the existing one, previously covered with a heavy Norman -style wooden coating. As an extension, The custom bench fits harmoniously into the lounge area. “The dining area was naturally located at the bottom of the room,” adds Baptiste Legué. “But he also has a beautiful view of the outside.” Upstairs, the two bedrooms are connected by a small central bathroom. The designers worked to create a hot atmosphere, similar to a cocoon. To achieve this, they used the same tones and materials on the ground floor. One of the bedrooms has a delicate natural hemp fiber head and a changing room with “a whole series of intelligent and funny provisions to be designed”.
A studio Come dependence
On the same floor and for the owners themselves, the Atelier Baptiste Legué was awarded the renovation of a small studio 25 square meters. It was therefore decided to conceive them as a single project, to create independent housing spaces for the various family members. “The duplex was the starting point for our reflections and we imagined the studio apartment in the same DNA, with the same choice of materials”. The kitchen, for example, was designed in stainless steel, with a bench for lunch in small groups. The sofa bed, conceived as a living room during the day and sleeping area in the evening, is surmounted by a series of decorative shelves.
“The peculiarity of this space is that we designed it to be more playful and less rigid than the Duplex section,” explains Baptiste Legué. We also created a wooden dividing wall, with a dyed oak finish. On the other hand, we played with the curves to hide, in particular, a small bathroom with shower and a changing room more on the right. In addition to studying a more cheerful character, the goal was also to open the sea view. “The natural extension of the Deauville beach”, summarizes the interior designer, which is definitely inspired by the Normandy coast.
