French architect Paul Coudamy has converted this former butcher's shop in suburban Paris into a private residence and included mysterious figures in the photographs (+ slideshow).
Paul Coudamy renovated the old charcuterie in Bagnolet into a home by adding a spiralling oak staircase and a bookcase with moving sections.
"Renovating professional premises to change them into living accommodation is now a frequent occurrence in Paris and its surrounding suburbs, an exercise in architecture that requires thinking of new concepts of living, interchanging private life and public life," said the designer.
The Blur home was converted for a motorbike enthusiast, for whom Coudamy created a garage in the previous doorway to store his vehicle.
The designer also installed a tilted mirror above the bookshelf so the owner can keep an eye on his parked bike while relaxing in his armchair.
Sitting and reading areas are located behind the large shop window facing onto the street.
Alternate cubby holes in the wooden bookshelf are fitted with pivoting metal boxes, which can be tucked away to save space or pulled out to create a more interesting display.
The same wood and metal are used for the spiral staircase, which has fan-shaped treads that get smaller towards the top.
This staircase leads up to a bathroom, partitioned with screens covered in a condensation pattern.
Surfaces on the ground floor have been retained from the building's former use, including wall and floor tiles plus large metal refrigerator doors.
Paul Coudamy has previously used figures in the photoshoots for his projects. He has also included an invisible man and woman in the images of a Paris apartment and a guy wearing a gimp mask at another residence in the French capital.
Photography is by Benjamin Boccas.
Read on for more information from the designer:
Paul Coudamy has transformed a butcher shop in Bagnolet, France, into a private home. Renovating professional premises to change them into living accommodation is now a frequent occurrence in Paris and its surrounding suburbs, an exercise in architecture that requires thinking of new concepts of living, interchanging private life and public life. Blur is therefore a transparent environment made up of spaces that never totally discloses its fragile privacy. It is formed of a continuous succession of concrete and glass symbolising a period that combines work and pleasure in a single movement.
On the ground floor the former boutique fronted by a shop window has been turned into a sitting-room/library with a storefront, directly connected to the specifically created garage: the owner is devoted to his motorbike, it is therefore no surprise that he has placed a mirror above his books to be able to keep an eye on his pride and joy from the comfort of his armchair!
The bookshelves designed by Paul Coudamy are based on a wooden structure into which the architect has fitted pivoting metal boxes. The principle enables greater storage capacity and the façade is permanently redefined as books are sought out. There is a set of suspended boxes levitating between the ground and the ceiling, some inside and some outside.
Metal and wood are repeated for the oak staircase connecting the ground floor and the first floor in an open-sided bespoke spiral, a natural upward surge into space. It forms a beautifully designed raw metal backbone to the building cutting a contrast with the vernacular tone.
Lastly, the bathroom upstairs that Paul Coudamy has created combines both dry and wet areas. He has used a composite trompe l'œil partition in a permanent state of condensation as a border that will always be dry/wet. It is again continuity between two functions, spaces and visual impressions.
During the last Furniture Fair in Milan, Jean Nouvel made an appeal to reconvert and to make work premises and residential accommodation more inseparable: the natural movement of urban aesthetics exploding with vitality to adapt to new space constraints.