ART GALLERY / HOME INTEGRATION
This project is a renovation, a refurbishment. Living spaces were already allocated, reception room, dining room, kitchen, storage, bedrooms and living room, they were, however, in a way, undersized because of an overabundance of walls and partitions. The main objective was to open the spaces. We worked with a structural engineer to take down many walls and partitions, even bearing walls (replacing them by steel beams) in order to simplify, fluidify the space. There now are only 4 spaces, each with a simple function: Entrance, Dining, Living (with a kitchen space), Master Suite (bedroom, dressing, study, bathroom), with the right balance where Art Gallery and Home blend and complete each other.
We decided to neutralize walls and door frames by painting them off-white, a color that will work with the gallery style lighting for the paintings too. Lighting is a big challenge here, it needs to be versatile, fit for art viewing (as in a gallery or a museum) and at the same time fit for a home!
The project was a big project as we had to rework all the plumbing, wiring, walls, roof, floors before bringing in all the interior design elements. Renovating a house actually takes more time than building one! We worked with an experienced and rigorously directed contractor to add I beams for example and renovate the house to European construction standards.
Everything has actually been custom-made, to create coherence between the spaces and their functions we needed sizes, shapes, shades and materials and there was no better solution than custom made. We sourced some elements in Europe, the marble for the kitchen counter is from in Italy, because we needed its very specific pattern to make it work with the wood table, made from Indonesian wood. All the elements are a fusion of natural materials that were designed to blend with the outdoors and art works, it really had to be very subtle and minimalist.
The art collection itself is the owner’s choice. I was not involved in creating the collection, I was involved in helping realize the potential of the collection, in creating a way to exhibit their art in their home by finding a way for their art to be properly displayed and celebrated the way it deserves. The collection consists of mostly Indonesian paintings, with major works by Indonesian great artists such as Widayat, Made Wianta, Made Djirna, and Nasirun.
We added all the decorative and functional art pieces, like the green Italian marble kitchen tops, many benches, tables.