Traveling right at home

The owner is a keen traveler who wishes to be abroad even when at home. So the designer takes inspiration from Eiffel Tower, the symbol of Paris, his favorite destination. Abstractions from the tower form the design vocabulary, yielding two simple elements: lattice and illumination. Walls, ceilings, shelves, and even the railings forming the open closet in the bedroom all meet at angles, and the feature wall and sliding door in the living room are panels adhered together by strips of lattice-like metal. Recessed linear lights are all lattice-like in their angled orientation. Velvet and woven upholstery are used on the living room walls and the master bedroom headboard; their differing textures and geometric shapes contribute to increasing the sense of depth in an otherwise compressed space - the ceiling is low at 8.5 feet. Spotlights in the living room face outward at the walls, simulating the light beams from the tower and creating a melodramatic mood. Working together with the lighting are reflective surfaces, e.g. the laminated cabinet finishing in the kitchen. The swirls in the marble finishing throughout also conjure up the tower's dazzling sight at night. A monochromatic color scheme further brings out the tower’s modern and chic presence.