In this setting steeped in history, this former restaurant annex—resembling a small shed and seemingly frozen in time—became ARCHIK’s new playground, undergoing a transformation that remained true to its past and its roots.

Before …

Objectif

Conceived as a reinterpretation of a beach cottage with a more structured and assertive design, the renovation adds an extra bedroom to this apartment, making it ideal for a family vacation in the Mediterranean or as a second home. The character of the space has been preserved, both in its exterior volumes and in the design of its windows and doors, while offering a living environment better suited to contemporary lifestyles.

Guidelines

The exterior volumes and existing openings were preserved, while the interior spaces were completely redesigned. The kitchen was moved to the heart of the project to naturally extend the living area toward the terrace and free up the space needed to create an additional bedroom. Each design decision thus seeks to extend the history of the space without altering its character, striking a balance between authenticity, simplicity, and contemporary comfort.

Implementation

The project is organized around a spacious open-plan living area that extends from one side of the house to the other, creating a strong connection with the outdoors.

At the heart of the space, a custom-designed honey-toned wooden kitchen is centered around a generous island, which naturally becomes the gathering point of the home.

Materiality plays a key role in defining the identity of the project. A cream-colored textured plaster covers the main volumes, creating a bright and raw atmosphere. Wooden joinery, glazed terracotta tiles, and brushed copper fixtures come together to form a warm palette inspired by Mediterranean architecture.

The more private area of the cabanon accommodates the bedrooms, bathroom, and storage spaces.

Partner brands include :

13Desserts : Furniture
Amélie Baudin : Ceramics
Atlas Edition : Furniture
DCW Éditions : Lighting
Galerie Diego Escobar : Presenting artworks by Mathieu Lucas
Honoré : Furniture and décor
Joséphine Vallé Franceschi : Photographic works
La Serviette Paris : Bed and bath linens
Revol : Tableware
Saudade : Décor
Talka : Furniture and décor
Tolix : Outdoor furniture

Original plans & project

La Super Cadenelle est une résidence de standing des années 1970 à Marseille conçue par les architectes François Bart et Joël Hardion.

Implantée dans un grand parc dominant la baie du Prado, elle illustre une typologie d’habitat issue du mouvement moderne, avec un plan de masse brutal peu adapté à la forte déclivité du terrain.

Son architecture est simple, de style international : immeubles enduits en blanc et gris clair, parements de mosaïque, verre, aluminium et marbre.

François Bart & Joël Hardion

François Bart (1908 – 1984) et Joël Hardion (1913 – 2002) sont deux architectes qui ont œuvré dans la reconstruction d’après-guerre.

À l’issue de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, ils obtiennent leur agrément de reconstructeurs pour le département des Bouches-du-Rhône et prennent ainsi part au relèvement de Marseille.

En contrebas, un vaste garage, une buanderie, un hammam ainsi qu’un espace indépendant composé d’un salon, d’une chambre, d’une salle d’eau et de sa terrasse privative permettent d’envisager une maison d’amis, un espace professionnel ou une parfaite autonomie pour recevoir famille et invités.

À l’extérieur, le jardin en restanques accueille un agréable potager qui apporte une respiration végétale à cette architecture minérale.

Édifiée entre 1947 et 1952 par Charles Édouard Jeanneret dit Le Corbusier, La Cité Radieuse située dans le 8ème arrondissement de Marseille concrétise le projet d’un « village vertical » appelé « Unité d’Habitation ».

Cette cité-jardin verticale, construite sur pilotis, est inscrite au patrimoine mondial de l’UNESCO depuis 2016. Créative et avant-gardiste, son architecture surprenante telle un paquebot offre une multitude de jeux de lumière, de perspectives et de couleurs, se présentant comme une œuvre architecturale à part entière.

Derrière ce projet fou de 337 appartement, se cache la forte volonté du  Corbusier d’instaurer une nouvelle manière d’Habiter, permettant de vivre ensemble et de libérer les femmes.

Le Corbusier

Né le 6 octobre 1887 et décédé le 27 août 1965,
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris plus connu sous le pseudonyme Le Corbusier, est un architecte du mouvement moderne. Aux côtés notamment de Robert Mallet-Stevens et de Mies Van Der Rohe, il est un artiste complet opérant également en tant qu’urbaniste et designer. Fondateur de principes tels que le Modulor ou l’Unité d’Habitation, son œuvre comprend 17 sites – 10 en France – classés au Patrimoine mondial de l’Unesco tandis que de nombreuses de ses réalisations sont classées Monuments Historiques.

Parmi ses œuvres emblématiques on compte La Cité Radieuse à Marseille, La Villa Savoye à Poissy, la ville de Chandigarh en Inde et la chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut à Ronchamp. Il signe également des pièces de mobilier phares tels que le fauteuil LC2 et la lounge chair LC4.

In the heart of the Carré d’Or hides this unsuspected garden level. Left abandoned for a long time and split in two by a wall, it was the result of a long renovation.

Target

To find a ‘real garden’ and to be able to embrace the space in its entirety from the house.

Course of action

Structuring the space into two distinct functional areas: a garden area and a parking area. The two spaces being on two different levels.

Achievement

In the garden area, the existing plants have been deliberately preserved and enhanced. The existing plant palette was already diversified and interesting: apricot tree, laurel, olive tree, medlar tree, almond tree, etc. The beds were simply restructured with perennials and lower plants (agaves, stipa, creeping rosemary, thyme, gaura, etc.) and delimited by corten steel, in order to highlight them. The lighting of these beds has also been designed to give perspective to the garden and verticality to the existing limestone walls. The central space is grassed, hosting a beautiful tree with light and evergreen foliage (false pepper tree). It also allows to reduce the vis-à-vis from the upper floors of the building. All around, a large terrace in exotic wood offers various living spaces: garden furniture, dining area, etc.

The difference in level with the parking space is managed by a wooden step in the extension of the terrace and in the almost total width of the garden. In order not to have a continuous view of the bottom of the garden, we have created a white concrete screen made to measure, with an openwork pattern, reminiscent of those already present on the ironwork in place. This element becomes the masterpiece of this garden.

A true haven of peace in the heart of downtown Marseille!

LE QUARTIER

Périer – Delibes

An extension of the very chic Carré d'Or, Périer is one of the most sought-after neighborhoods...
  • Crédits photosElodie Wehrlen
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Before …

Renovation of a typical apartment of the 60s. Bright, located on a whole floor at the corner of 2 streets, it originally had 3 bedrooms, a shower room, a bathroom and a kitchen. Bought by a couple, one bedroom was removed to create instead a beautiful living space.

Target

To give character to an apartment that didn’t have much. Favouring a large living space, very luminous, where the various pieces of furniture of the owners, keen on design of the 50s and 60s, will be highlighted. Renovate the whole, in its juice, with short perspectives, and with dark and not very functional rooms of water.

Course of action

Destructure to restructure. Open up the spaces as much as possible, but restructure them by using cross-cutting woodwork, giving onto both the hallway and the living room for example, or onto the hallway and the kitchen. Re-open and lengthen the perspectives, bet on white (the majority of the woodwork) and on pretty materials with soft, subtle tones: light terrazzo for the kitchen, slightly marbled tiles for the shower room, matt white tiles, almost chalky for the large bathroom…

Achievement

Except for the 2 bedrooms and bathrooms, all the partitions have been removed. For the most part, they were replaced by custom-made woodwork. For example, the wall of the corridor was replaced by a large bookcase, located in exactly the same place, but which lets the light pass. A lot of work was done on the parquet floor, which was entirely renovated and completely redone in some rooms where there was none left. The kitchen was enlarged to the maximum, with the same principle of “crossing” furniture giving on the corridor. The two bedrooms were optimized by creating custom dressings at the head of the bed. A very graphic joinery work marks the entrance, and gives a strong personality, in contrast to the rest of the essentially white joinery.

A renovation that gives pride of place to materials and light.

LE QUARTIER

Périer – Delibes

An extension of the very chic Carré d'Or, Périer is one of the most sought-after neighborhoods...
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Before …

This villa designed by architect Alain Richard in 2007 has a 100 m2 roof terrace offering an exceptional panorama of the sea and the hills of Les Goudes.

Target

Develop this unused roof terrace. Largely dominated by its direct relationship with the sky, and the minerality of its context, the layout of the roof must blend into the decor.

Course of action

Work on the question of the limit and allow this new roof terrace to integrate elegantly and discreetly into its environment.

Achievement

The aesthetic choice was to work with light furniture, whose colors and materials are reminiscent of the immediate environment, or make nods to the imagination evoked by the place (boat, port, forts, etc.). The garden lounge and the dining area are the two strong, structuring elements, around which the color is brought by the small furniture, the decoration and the vegetation. Strict and direct forms are mixed with softer ones, to bring a touch of harmony and softness to the whole. The layout of the terrace contrasts with the brutality of its landscape. One serves the other for more lightness.

The outdoor design was realized in partnership with Good Design Store, for the supply of furniture (Fermob, Houe, Gervasoni, Petite Friture, Serax), Basset Diffusion Aubagne nursery for the plants (olive tree, phormium, dasylirion, cycas, etc).

A roof terrace where the owners now enjoy spending quality time!

LE QUARTIER

Private: Les Goudes

At the gates of the calanques, this district is in osmosis with nature.
  • Crédits photosFranKc Orsoni
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Before …

Post-modern architecture from the 70’s, this apartment has been completely refurbished and renovated by ARCHIK.

Target

This apartment benefits from a triple orientation, a view on a park, and its weak partitioning. In its original state, it offered a separate living room with a large, heavy bookcase and an independent kitchen. The object was then to take advantage of the assets of the property and optimize the surfaces, while bringing a new architectural language.

Course of action

Open the volumes to bring fluidity and light.

Achievement

The partitions between the kitchen and the living room are removed to create a unique, generous and crossing volume. A massive element imposes itself from the entrance as a structuring block defining two spaces in the living room. The separations between the bedrooms and the bathroom have been reworked to create new natural light and reduce the circulation space, which is distinguished by its unique treatment in waxed concrete (floor, wall, ceiling).

A totally redesigned and light-filled apartment!

LE QUARTIER

Private: Saint-Giniez

This area is one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in the city.
  • Crédits photosJeremy Azzaro
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Before …

Without fundamentally modifying the volumes of the apartment, the work consisted above all in a refreshment in all points of view (kitchen, painting, parquet floor, joineries), in order to offer to the purchasers an apartment which resembles them: an apartment with character, at the same time eclectic and audacious.

Target

To modernize an apartment in the Cité Radieuse while preserving its soul, drawing on the work of Le Corbusier.

Course of action

To provide a setting for the numerous works of art and designer furniture of the owners, great art lovers.

Achievement

The layout has been completely redesigned to highlight and stage the couple’s works. The kitchen has been completely redesigned to be more suitable in terms of functionality, while at the same time redoing some of Le Corbusier’s and Charlotte Perriand’s characteristic kitchen elements (high cupboards, reminder of the wooden handles on the kitchen fronts, etc.).
The range of colors used in the apartment is also directly inspired by the range of paint that Le Corbusier used in Bordeaux for the Cité Frugès, whether for the kitchen, or for certain volumes that have been repainted in pink, ivory white, almond green and red.

A precise renovation offering the best possible showcase for pieces and works of art!

LE QUARTIER

Sainte-Anne

Sainte-Anne is a typical residential area of the "city of 111 villages".
  • Crédits photosOlivier Amsellem
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L’ avant …