Design your life to include more money, health and happiness with less stuff, space and energy.

Design your life to include more money, health and happiness with less stuff, space and energy.

Would You Live in an Idea?

We ran across this stunning little Parisian apartment in Arch Daily. The level of detail and design that architecture firm Betillon Dorval-Bory brings to the 215 sq ft (20 sqm) space is remarkable. Yet there is more to this tiny space than meets the eye (or rather your eye brings more to the space).

The apartment, dubbed “Appartement Spectral”, is a study in light. In order to compensate for a dearth of natural light (a point we’re not sure we’d agree on), BDB decided to play around with different types of artificial lights. One side of the apartment is lit by low-pressure sodium lights and the other florescent. Each type of light has a different color rendering index (CRI). “The CRI of a light describes its ability to reflect accurate color of a surface,” according to BDB.

The low-pressure sodium lights, which are the same orange lights you see illuminating cities when you’re in an airplane, have a very low CRI, which means everything ends up monochromatic and the same orangey hue of the light. These lights are relegated to the bathing and sleeping areas where BDB thought distinguishing color was not as critical.

The florescent lights have a very high CRI and thereby render all reflected colors near perfectly. These lights were placed in the living and kitchen areas where color distinction is more useful.

In terms of how the sparse interior and light play off one another, BDB says this:

The apartment is designed in a simple and neutral expression, without color or particular detail, annihilating any architectural expressiveness or narrative to leave only the logic of composition generated by light.

The apartment is pretty gorgeous in our opinion, but we do wonder what it would be like to live in. In terms of sterility, this place makes the LifeEdited apartment look like a music festival porta-potty–it’s whiter than white. And as interesting as the theory is behind the lighting, we’re not sure how it makes the space more livable necessarily.

Of course our questions are a bit silly. This is not an apartment for just anyone. This is a tiny aesthetic wonderland and, for the right esthete, this would make a perfect home.

via Arch Daily

Photo credit: Betillon Dorval-Bory