French interior designer Maurice Padovani has been a designer since 1985. Maurice has completed this beautiful home located by the beaches of the Prado in Marseilles, France.

According to Maurice: “The contemporary French property belongs to a young family with two children. The kids had to share a bedroom temporarily whilst their home was being renovated.

“This former smallholding flanked by a stable was renovated in three steps. The volume was entirely freed from all its partitions and false-ceilings thus revealing a rich and space-structuring framework. Behind the complexity of the assembling of beams and joists, the parents’ bedroom slips in; open to the living room and accessible by a metal stairway. The main wall’s top is entirely open and the old staircase, formerly external, is integrated to the houses volume thanks to  the installation of galvanised steel bays which oblique uprights give rhythm to the surface.

“A few years later, the couple acquired the contemporary French buildings semi basement as well as an adjoining outbuilding. This time again, the main walls were wide open in order to ease the passage of light and new steel bays, as an echo to the first installation, substitute themselves to masonry. The ‘cooking’, ‘meal’ and ‘living room’ functions were moved down to the ground floor. And there again, to guarantee the free flow between the spaces, every partition was removed. The little garden’s terrace, layed out during the same building campaign is covered with large ipé blades and the same wood, on the same level, was used for the semi basement in order to ensure continuity. The big wall standing between the house and the now linked outbuilding was covered with a gouged MDF wainscot because of recurring moisture that is impossible to reabsorb. The installation of this panel slightly apart from the wall creates an air flow that suppresses the effects of humidity. The panel surface’s undulating relief makes it vibrate under the light.”