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      Frama designs apartment for filmmaker Albert Moya in Renaissance villa

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      Copenhagen design brand Frama has contrasted modern furnishings against dark wood panelling inside this hybrid apartment and workspace in Florence, which belongs to Spanish director Albert Moya.

      The self-contained residence occupies a number of rooms inside the Villa Medicea di Marignolle, a Rennaisance villa and estate nestled among the hills of Florence’s southwestern suburbs.
      Frama has furnished the Florence home of Albert MoyaThe building once belonged to the House of Medici – a powerful Italian banking family that achieved prominence in Florence in the 15th century – and was often frequented by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei.
      Today, it is split into multiple apartments including Moya’s, which was renovated in the 1970s and consequently has a different feel and appearance compared to the more traditional parts of the villa.
      The brand introduced modern furnishings to contrast against the dark wood panellingMoya, who became known for his 2013 short film American Autumn, asked Frama to turn the space into a modern residence that encourages “artistic encounters” by offering spaces for living as well as for hosting small events and collaborative workshops.

      “I teamed up with Frama to create a studio, a space acting as a school where artists can meet students, a place where everyone can learn something new, absorb knowledge and exchange ideas,” he explained.
      “There is a natural interaction between the interior architecture, Frama’s universe and each selected piece. It is a harmonious, unified and balanced approach.”
      Touches of stainless steel and aluminium help to brighten the interiorDespite the need for introducing “contemporary comforts”, Moya wanted the final design to respect the building’s heritage.
      As a result, the Frama team didn’t make any structural changes and didn’t mount anything on the walls in order to preserve the warm wood panelling that was introduced as part of the renovation.
      Instead, understated furniture, lighting and textiles from the brand’s collection were brought in to style the flat, using a simple material palette of wood, cork, marble, stainless steel and aluminium.

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      Apart from Moya’s own bedroom, the apartment encompasses a kitchen and studio space, a living room, a second bathroom and two mezzanines – one housing a gym and the other a guest room.
      The interior is designed to encourage socialisation, connection and meaningful conversations between the filmmaker and his guests.
      For this purpose, it features two different kinds of workspaces: a quiet area in the kitchen designed for independent work during the mornings and more social areas in the living room and on the mezzanines for gathering in the afternoon.
      Frama made no structural changes and left all walls untouched”The residence will allow the creative mind to wander in solitude or in relation to others,” said Frama.
      “Albert seeks to explore silence and spaciousness and, at the same time, to experience a non-conforming living studio where focus, imagination, expressiveness and mindfulness are free flowing.”
      The apartment looks out at the estate’s cypress treesFrama is a multi-disciplinary brand that creates everything from homeware to furniture, lighting, scents and skincare, all the way up to entire interiors projects.
      Previously, the company has designed a Beirut concept store with limewashed surfaces and simple concrete fixtures, as well as a collection of fabrics made from biodegradable materials such as algae and terracotta.
      The photography is by Teodora Kaolchagova and Fredrik Aartun.

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      Fabio Novembre launches first concept store in Milan dedicated to his designs

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      Italian architect and designer Fabio Novembre has opened IoNoi Gallery, a hybrid retail space and gallery in Milan with “strongly postmodern” interiors designed to showcase his work.

      Located on a street corner a few steps from Novembre’s studio, the shop sells a range of products the designer has created throughout his career for companies including Italian furnituremaker Kartell, lighting brand Lasvit and glassmaker Venini.
      IoNoi Gallery showcases Fabio Novembre’s works on a street corner in MilanNovembre designed the minimalist interior himself, conceiving it as a blank page in an architect’s sketchbook.
      This is represented through the grid pattern printed on the store’s white melamine laminate walls, which allows the bold colours and forms in his work to take centre stage.
      “The design of the interior is like a blank squared page, the perfect canvas for an architect,” Novembre told Dezeen. “It allows objects to float in space, suspended on a system of interchangeable luminous shelves.”

      Yellow plinths display the designer’s productsThe displayed items, which straddle the realms of art, design and fashion, are arranged across simple shelving with embedded LED strip lights.
      A bright yellow wall that leads to the rear of the store and three yellow display plinths provide accents of colour against the grey stone floor.
      A yellow wall leads to the far end of the storeIn keeping with his other work, Novembre describes his first dedicated concept store as “strongly postmodern”.
      The gallery’s name, IoNoi, is derived from an ongoing research project of the same name, conceived by Novembre to explore the relationship between the self and the collective, between objects and their “universe of reference”.

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      “IoNoi started as a blog in 2008,” Novembre explained. “Its point was that people and things are born from other people and other things. The research of connections, often unplanned and undeclared, helps pave the way for an inclusive and cross-cutting approach to knowledge.”
      “Today, the project evolves into IoNoi Gallery, a physical space that contains and exhibits my world made of industrial objects and art design in the continuous link between design, architecture, art and fashion.”
      Floating shelves are mounted on the wallsThe store will double up as a venue for hosting exhibitions, research projects and collaborations.
      Novembre also hinted that he is working on more ceramic products following his recent work for Italian porcelain brand Villari.
      The walls are finished in a pattern reminiscent of gridded sketchbook paper”I find it interesting to continue with the formal experimentation on porcelain, carrying on the tradition of Italian design masters such as [Ettore] Sottsass and [Alessandro] Mendini – my maestros,” he said.
      Novembre’s wide-ranging portfolio includes a number of other architecture and interior projects. Among them are the headquarters of football club AC Milan and a house on a man-made island in Abu Dhabi that is wrapped around a reflecting pool.

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      Styles and eras mingle inside “unfinished” diplomat's home in Rome by 02A

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      Antique and mid-century furnishings are combined with sleek contemporary cabinetry in this intentionally unfinished apartment in Rome, designed by local architecture and interiors studio 02A.

      The one-bedroom flat belongs to a stateless diplomat, who asked 02A to turn his home into a sanctuary that he could return to at the end of his frequent work trips.
      02A has overhauled the whole apartment of a diplomat in Rome from the bedroom (top) to the dining room (above)The owner also wanted a place to display the extensive collection of furniture and craft objects he has accumulated during his travels.
      “The client has given us a wider opportunity to reflect on the concept of home as a place of belonging, even more so when it is not lived in on a daily basis,” said architect Marco Rulli, who co-founded 02A together with Thomas Grossi.
      “The project was a journey into his memory and aspirations through a constant and free dialogue.”

      An archway with an integrated bookcase leads from the lounge to the dining areaThe apartment takes up 130 square metres on the ground floor of an early twentieth-century building in Rome’s Flaminio district, a few steps from the National Gallery of Modern Art and the MAXXI Museum.
      It has a generous garden and is surrounded by nature, nestled between the eastern bank of the Tiber river and the urban vegetation of the Monti Parioli hills.
      The kitchen’s barrel-vaulted ceiling was painted terracotta redThe apartment’s entrance opens onto the living area, where a glass wall cuts through the decorative barrel-vaulted ceiling.
      In the adjacent kitchen, this ceiling is painted terracotta red and paired with brushed granite worktops alongside white and yellow wall units that complement the building’s original flooring.
      An Esperanto phrase is engraved above the granite worktop in the kitchenEngraved on the backsplash of the scullery is a phrase written in Esperanto, a universal language developed for international communication in the late 19th century.
      Translated to English, it reads: “he who is firm in his ideas is noble, but he who is able to change them is even nobler”.
      The ground-floor apartment opens onto a generous gardenNext to the kitchen, the lounge features restored parquet flooring made of solid oak, which serves as a backdrop for a couple of leather sofas, French art deco armchairs from the 1940s and an antique Venetian lantern, alongside a selection of photographs and sculptures.
      A set of French doors opens out onto the home’s private garden, which is shaded by a huge palm tree and surrounded by shielding vines and Swiss cheese plants.

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      An arched passage with a custom integrated bookcase leads from the lounge to a more intimate dining area, where an Illan birch pendant lamp by Luceplan hangs above a glass-surface table set with 1950s chairs.
      This space also displays a number of the owner’s antique furniture and artworks, including pieces by South African textile artist Igshaan Adams and a chalk work called Classroom by Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou.
      Elements from different eras are brought together in the apartment’s bedroomThe apartment’s bedroom, study and two bathrooms are separated from the rest of the plan by a small doorway.
      This sleeping area was the main focus of the project, according to 02A. The bedroom was conceived as a suite with a small open bathroom, which is screened off from the rest of the space by smoked mirrored screens.
      Mirrored screens enclose the en suite bathroomThe bathroom’s reflective walls create what 02A describes as an “immaterial cubic volume”, camouflaging the ensuite while diffusing the light streaming in from the three large windows that run along the apartment’s southwest side.
      One side of the bedroom is lined with made-to-measure wardrobes covered in Ukiyo wallpaper by French design brand Nobilis, which was informed by traditional Japanese woodblock prints.
      Palm Jungle wallpaper by Cole & Son decorates the main bathroomThe second bathroom is bigger and houses a suspended ceramic tub, paired with black marble surfaces and Palm Jungle wallpaper by British brand Cole & Son.
      Next to the bathroom is a study furnished with upholstered vintage theatre chairs and a projector mounted on the ceiling. The room is completed with a writing desk by Italian brand Desalto and a Serbelloni armchair, created by the late industrial designer Vico Magistretti for De Padova.
      Dark decor and a projector build the theatrical character of the study”We tried to play with the concept of time,” said 02A. “We didn’t want a finished house. We were interested in giving space to the unfinished, to the imperfection that would contain the vital force of curiosity.”
      The idea of creating an intentionally imperfect or unfinished interior is popular among designers. Peeling plaster, raw concrete and dangling wires give character to these spaces, which look as though they’ve been abandoned halfway through decorating.
      The photography is by Serena Eller.

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