Project: Mini Apartment in Milan
Designer: Chroma Studio
Styling: Elga Ancona
Location: Milano, Italy
Year: 2021
Area: 50 m2
Photos Credit: Riccardo Gasperoni
A modern office, linear and neutral, is converted into a home and made welcoming through a play of colours, coverings and décor. Its unique structure, consisting of a narrow corridor, was the driving force behind the design project, turning a limitation into an opportunity. The goal was to enhance the areas and multiply the spaces through optical illusions based on targeted colours, mirrors and wallpaper.
The space is transformed and divided, illuminated by large ribbon windows that fill the place with natural light. The intervention therefore aimed at enhancing the existing monochromatic and linear spaces which lent themselves adequately to a chromatic and decorative play thanks to the play of volumes already present. The client, a young independent girl, was looking for a place that could be practical and welcoming at the same time, the ideal home for everyday life but also versatile. By studying her personality, habits, tastes, including her favourite colours, the design studio opted for a soft and harmonious palette, ranging from greens to chestnut browns passing through light blues.
The colours selected for this project shaped the rooms and increased the space, proving that even the smallest projects like this 50 sqm one-bedroom apartment can be enhanced and turned into welcoming and comfortable homes. The green of the living room, used in two shades, expresses regeneration and rebirth, urging us to breathe more deeply and instilling trust and security. It favours blood pressure reduction by stimulating the pituitary gland, which is ideal for the living area! The palette also includes the white colour, which acts as a neutral canvas and contributes to lighten the environment by providing balance and serenity. The kitchen is the heart of the house, enclosed in a chromatic “cube” that instills openness and sociability, thus generating a dynamic and multifunctional environment. It becomes the place to welcome and share, accompanied by dark chestnut wood, a colour that increases energy and stimulates the appetite.
The “Elisir” wallpaper by Wall&decò, which is used right from the entrance to the kitchen, is the common thread that connects the intrinsically different environments of the house and leads the eye in the exploration of the apartment, softening the rigid lines of the narrow entrance corridor. The wallpaper decoration reproduces the design of a curtain, perfect for an irregular and discontinuous wall like that of this corridor, where it lends itself best to create the feeling of hiding another environment. Useful for making any space look bigger, ideal in a corridor.
Along with colour and wallpaper, there is another element that mixes with colour, breaking up the continuous walls with a three-dimensional play of full and empty spaces. These are plaster panels consisting of rounded vertical “rods” applied to the walls, whose “coloured” verticality creates a tone-on-tone play of lights and shadows. The same game is used in the bathroom, but this time using vertical wooden elements with rectangular section which disappear into the plasterboard when applied to the floor.
Talking About Chroma Studio
Chroma Studio is the multidisciplinary studio of two young designers and artists who have combined their multiple and different skills to approach the world of design in a totally innovative way.
Giuseppe Albanese graduated at the IED in Milan, with a course of study that led him to work first as an interior designer for various Milanese studios while continuing his work as a freelance 3D modeller. Although the Milanese market is always at the forefront, he decided to explore new spaces by working as a Planner, Interior Designer and Project Manger in the United Arab Emirates.
Elga graduated in scenography in Bari with a specialisation in Brera, a passion that she continues to cultivate by working as Art Director in the Product Design sector.
Chroma Studio was born from the union of these two multifaceted artists, whose design focuses on the use of colour and material, where neutral and white spaces are nothing but neutral canvases to be filled for them. Through the skilful use of colour, the design of their spaces seems to acquire a new dynamism in which even the energetic study of colours becomes an integral part of the preliminary research: a colour can make us feel and behave differently, which is why it’s important to use it in the correct way according to the function and the personality. Hence the name of their company.
FURNITURE
Closet in the entrance: tailor-made closet, project by Chroma Studio and realized by Falegnameria Modonesi
Kitchen: model Start-Time from Veneta Cucine
Stools: The Masie
Sofa: model Dovizio from Dondi Salotti
Lamp in the living room: Ikea
Walk-in closet: tailor made realized by Kuboline
Washbasin: Arbi Arredobagno
Bathroom fixtures: collection Smile from Ceramica Cielo
Basin mixers and shower group: collection Diametro 35 from Ritmonio
Bathroom accessories: collection Elementa from Ritmonio
Washbasin lamp: model Amp Lamp from Normann Copenhagen
COVERINGS AND FINISHES
Wallpaper entrance-kitchen: model Elisir from Wall&decò Ribbed panel: plaster panels designed by Chroma Studio
Paintings: matt enamel paint
Bathroom tiles: collection Biscuit from 41zero42
Bathroom wallpaper: model Exotic Dream from Londonart, fiberglass model Shower coating: microcement San Marco
Bathroom floor: model Waterfall from Lea Ceramiche
CLOSET IN THE ENTRANCE
Closet tailor-made in lacquered wood. It performs the dual function of wardrobe and storage room, necessary in an apartment of such small size.
The design is completed by the presence of a semi-arched mirror and the ribbed plaster panel applied to the wall.
These decorative elements are reproduced in the lines of the doors, of which the wood recalls the vertical geometries and patterns.
Total cost around €3500.
