Paris based studio h2o Architects have designed the renovation of The Refuge. This cleverly planned apartment is located in the Les Menuires Ski Resort in France. Completed in 2011.

Description from the architects:

It is built at the end of the central building built in 1964 and features a triple orientation untapped by the original organization very compartmentalized. The request was impossible: increasing the surface area of ​​a living room without touching the bearing elements, propose two bathrooms instead of the existing single, keep the number of sleeping 8 beds 55 sqm.

To maximize the limited space and forced, we decided to reverse the perspective: do not try to get the furniture in the apartment but the apartment furniture!
A large wooden curve through all of the apartment. It brings together all of the functions to generate a large living space and panoramic views towards the mountains. This furniture includes wall thickness in a range of everyday uses nested within each other: the seats are adjacent to storage, Bedding overlap, a reading corner to transplant to a window inside the kitchen to addosse a bathroom. It is now the furniture itself that makes the space.
system secondary privatization beds are organized with curtains that wrap around the existing central wall.
A certain ambivalence functions remain in niches that serve as storing, and train scale or frame traversing the interior views. The playfulness is also organized in the micro-scale of his sleeping perched must climb to find his reading light, the tablet, its storage and its nest and protector.

The interior is treated with a single material wood, birch plywood against light for indoor and American walnut for the curved wall.

Layout before the renovation

Layout after the renovation

Photos by Julien Attard from h2o architectes website.

[via freshome]