Industrial Setting - Family Home

Making Ordinary Extraordinary
Less A Showcase Than A Home

In an old industrial building in Paris, furniture designer Matali Crasset has created a comfortable family home that displays her work perfectly.

Furniture designer Matali Crasset doesn't believe in complicating matters. In fact she has taken simplicity and turned it into an art form, creating pieces that can now be found on display in major European galleries. Her skill lies in the very ordinariness of the materials she uses and her knack of converting such everyday items as a humble nylon shopping bag into an item of furniture, using her imagination, sense of humour and boundless capacity for invention.

Her home in Paris is a perfect reflection of her style and the ideal setting for her latest creations. Situated between Belleville and the Canal St Martin, Matali has taken up residence in a large ex-printing house, and by using simple principles, basic shapes and plain materials created a home that looks like a separate house and feels like a loft, although it is neither.

In the office on the ground floor, Matali (seated on the right) designed both the large bookcase and the red Nextame chair, available from Domeau et Peres. The floor is made of birchwood.

The space is divided vertically to provide, on the ground floor, the office where Matali and her staff work, the living room and the kitchen; the second floor is given over to Popeline, Matali's three-year-old daughter with Francis Pichot; and the master bedroom and bathroom, which open out on to an airy roof terrace with fabulous views, are on the top floor.