A special home for special people: the renovation of a flat in Milan that revolves entirely around books
Fluid, bright spaces host bespoke furnishing systems where books become architecture and define the rooms.
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A bookcase with a home around it. Casa dei libri revolves entirely around the two MDF Italia bookcases that mark the living room: to get there, 23bassi demolished the original partition walls and reclaimed the double glazing onto the terrace, compressing the sleeping area. The entrance is guarded by a dinosaur-themed House of Hackney wallpaper with two flush doors that dialogue with the kitchen. A double-sided teal bookcase acts as a hinge between dining area and living room. Oak parquet in very long boards (1800×70 mm), water-green Tonalite tiles in the kitchen, Roman motifs from the House of the Faun in the bathrooms.
The living area. The renovation of a flat in Milan that revolves entirely around books. The flat, on a high floor, had two splendid sliding windows onto a terrace that were divided between living area and sleeping area. The design objective was to completely reopen this zone, free it of the partition walls and manage to have a living area and entrance with double glazing, more in keeping with contemporary aesthetic and functional canons.
To do this it was necessary to compress the sleeping area, in particular the child’s room, which was then the subject of a bespoke furnishing focus.
The entrance. The kitchen and the entrance are separated by a furnishing system that integrates the appliances and a storage cupboard. Access to the sleeping area is through two flush doors made in a wall clad with a dinosaur-themed wallpaper by House of Hackney.
The kitchen. The kitchen is an appendix of the living area, with a peninsula dividing it from the dining area, and is articulated in a C shape. A small double-sided bookcase, without a back and in teal, separates the living-room bookcase from the dining-area bookcase. The kitchen is made of laminate, bespoke, while the cladding of the work zone is in Tonalite tiles.
The living room. As well as the wall with the double windows, the living room is marked by the two MDF Italia bookcases. The bookcase is a perfect backdrop for the dining-table zone, and is also the first thing you see.
Choices and finishes. The floor of the whole home, both sleeping and living areas, is a beautiful oak parquet in a very particular format, with decidedly narrow boards (70 mm) but very long (1800 mm), laid perpendicular to the direction of the living-area light, widening the spaces considerably.
In the kitchen, the choice was made to differentiate the floor from the living room, inserting 20×20 tiles by Ceramica Tonalite, with a green motif of refined taste, paired with a work-zone cladding in water-green tiles, again by Tonalite. The nuance, also with the Smeg appliances, is delicate and fresh.
The bathrooms. The main bathroom is based entirely on a geometric motif which has a distant history, because it takes up the Roman geometries of the House of the Faun in Pompeii, and with its decoration in shades of grey surprises with its geometric contemporaneity.
The children’s bathroom instead sets, against a grey-toned floor motif, glossy rectangular white diamond-point cladding at mid-height, enhancing its brightness.
Lights. There are decorative lights marking the most important spaces. Above the kitchen island, for example, a composition of dress-me by Quicklighting, designed by 23bassi, was chosen.
Above the dining table, instead, there are IC Lights by Flos. While for the child’s room a composition by Creative Cables was chosen.
The child’s room. The choice to make the living room double was balanced by compromises in the sleeping area. The child’s room, in particular, has a narrow, long shape ending with the children’s bathroom, and has a square appendix and two windows.
This very particular shape required greater attention in the design of the furnishings and finishes, to make the most of all the spaces. As for the type of beds, a bespoke bunk bed was chosen.
The little ladder to reach the upper bed, also bespoke, is a storage unit and, when needed, a seat and an ‘amphitheatre’ for soft toys. The wardrobe created, to optimise the spaces, is sliding.
The appendix is, as well as another wardrobe area, dedicated to studying with a desk in front of the window. It is all then decorated by an animal-themed Tecnografica wallpaper.
