The small, white apartment designed by Atelier Kibum Park features a canopy bed in the kitchen

In the limited space of a small apartment, located on the top floor of a 1920s building in Les Lilas, Atelier Kibum Park dismantles the pre-existing spatial layout—previously constrained by a rigid definition of adjacent rooms—and rethinks the idea of the home by combining functionality with minimal aesthetics. In this project, the notion of an open space is specifically challenged by the presence of an unexpected central element: an impalpable cylindrical volume defined by translucent curtains attached to ceiling tracks, inside which the bed is placed, conceived as a sort of contemporary canopy. No longer a mobile furnishing element, the bed becomes an object that governs the space—fixed in its centrality and at the same time visually permeable.

Just behind this element, a system of partition panels follows the curvilinear forms of the drapery and houses storage spaces and the bathroom. Next to the bed is the kitchen unit, while the dining table area is positioned in front of a wall framed—above by a row of cabinets and below by a bench. Light enters through the windows into an environment where color is not allowed. Everything is white, ethereal, transparent—the only true condition for resolving the space. Only once the threshold to the attic level is crossed, via an impossible staircase and a sort of hatch resembling a space-time portal, do the soft shades of the carpet and the green of potted plants add a touch of color, returning the image of a space that could truly be lived in.