House with Reflective Furniture
Set Architects completes the renovation of an early 20th-century apartment in Rome’s Nomentano district
In the Nomentano district, just a short walk from Villa Torlonia, Set Architects has completed the renovation of an apartment within an early 20th-century building, reinterpreting its traditional layout through a contemporary lens.
The project is designed for a young family and engages with a layout typical of the period: a sequence of independent rooms, with ceilings approximately four meters high and openings in load-bearing walls that defined a strongly rigid distribution. The client’s brief called for larger, more fluid spaces capable of adapting over time to different domestic needs, an ambition clearly at odds with the existing plan.
The design therefore acts selectively on the structure, introducing two new openings within the living area that connect the kitchen, dining room, living room, and relaxation area, creating a continuous and interconnected spatial system. This new permeability is further articulated through a system of movable elements, full-height folding panels and sliding doors, that allow the spaces to be reconfigured, ensuring varying degrees of separation and privacy when needed.
Alongside this spatial transformation, the project preserves key identity elements of the apartment: the original wooden doors with colored glass and the decorative ceiling moldings, which retain the building’s historical memory.
The new intervention focuses on a restrained and carefully controlled material palette. A custom-designed oak parquet floor, laid in a continuous geometric pattern, becomes the unifying element throughout the apartment. Built-in furnishings are bespoke, with glossy lacquer finishes in butter and grey-blue tones, while stainless steel defines the kitchen, the sliding door system in the relaxation area, and selected bathroom elements, including the washbasins.
The project thus establishes a balance between preservation and transformation, where the apartment’s historic character enters into dialogue with a refined contemporary language, capable of responding to the demands of a renewed domestic way of living.
