Villa Algeria

The complete interiors of a private residence in Algeria, designed in three parts — the villa, an apartment, and a basement level with a guest lounge and a gym. Entrance, double-height dining, living, kitchen, majlis, bedrooms and their bathrooms, a study, and the service spaces were planned and detailed as one commission, from the plan to the joinery and the loose furniture.

One floor runs through everything. A single fractured-stone pattern is laid from the entrance to the basement, so that the three parts read as one house however they are entered, and the spaces are told apart by what stands on it rather than by what it is made of: dark joinery in the kitchen and the dressing spaces, floor-level seating in the majlis, a screen of fins where the stair rises through the dining space. The language is contemporary throughout; the way of living it serves is not new.