Inside a flat located in the historic heart of Padua, Collaboratorio has shaped a functional space for a young couple, designed to adapt and transform. The house, which had become an office during the 1980s, is now a light-filled environment proposing a different division of space.
A hidden and flexible room in a renovated apartment in Padua
Italian-Finnish firm Collaboratorio reshapes the spaces of a former office in the city’s historic centre around a wooden volume that discloses a new bedroom
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Photo Simone Bossi Photographer
Collaboratorio
Collaboratorio
Collaboratorio
Collaboratorio
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- Francesca Grillo
- 20 October 2022
- Padua, Italy
- Collaboratorio
- 60 sqm
- Private apartment
- 2021
The original plan organized the living area in two separate rooms: the architects demolished the partitions to obtain a single room hosting living room, kitchen and bedroom. A wooden “box” was inserted into the space: a custom-made furniture system, a room within a room integrating the sleeping area, with a small internal window facing the flat.
The intervention creates a brighter and wider home: views are extended through the exterior and the interior, and the openings – distributed only on a 6-metre wall – are fully functional, allowing natural light to enhance the livability of the interior, and to pour inside the new hidden room.
The bathroom was also enlarged and a small laundry room was added. The interior uses natural materials that age with time, producing their typical patina that adds aesthetic qualities to the surfaces: walls are modelled with clay, while floors and furniture are made of oak wood – elements that recall an almost ancestral environment where nature dominates. The studio also incorporated new technological solutions such as wall heating in the main space.
- Renovation of an apartment in Padua, Italy
- Padua. Italy
- Private apartment
- Collaboratorio
- 60 sqm
- 2021
Isometric view.
Isometric view.
Plan.
Original plan.