Front and back Apartment is a project designed by h2o architectes in 2008, covers a area of 60 m2 and is located in Paris.

The project consisted in converting an ancient and spatially tight apartment into a serene, spacious and exciting home for a young Parisian cartoon-book collector by using ingenious in-built furniture.
The existing apartment was indeed divided in no less than six rooms for a surface of only 60 sq. meters. The 5 square meter entrance alone counted seven different doors. Our project offers a large open and continuous space which is more or less complex or dense according to uses and orientation.
These variations are defined by furniture with varying geometry. Different functional “niches” come and help shape the space. Their size and color vary depending on the function of the room they serve. They are used as shelving for the very important collection of cartoon-books but they also define the space of the counter, the bathroom, the dressing-room etc. The reverse side of the furniture is also functional (storage, desk, video, more shelves, etc.) The apartment suddenly benefits from new spatial possibilities.
Photography by Julien Attard and Céline Clanet