Welcome to Florence Poncet's architectural project
This week, we are going to meet Florence Poncet , a young talented architect who presents her "PIGALLE" project, a former artist's studio completely redesigned to make it warm and enveloping without obscuring its history. As soon as we enter, we are amazed by these large windows and the six meter high ceilings. A duplex immediately revealing shades of green punctuated with black, combined with woody tones that reflect the atmosphere of the neighborhood and its image. We let you discover it through the portrait of Florence...
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Florence, can you introduce yourself?
I am Florence Poncet, architect and decorator. I carry out renovation and rehabilitation projects mainly for individuals in houses and apartments. My services range from architecture (structure, exterior fittings, techniques, facades, etc.), to decoration (choice of furniture, crockery, various decorative objects, curtains and also creation of custom-made furniture, soon in small series), including interior design (interior design including custom built furniture).
How did you come up with the idea of being an interior designer?
I wanted this job when I was 11 years old. It was during a move that I started to draw the plans for my new bedroom to place the furniture. When I was even younger, I was already making paper furniture for my Playmobil! I naturally started studying architecture when I was 17. I went to Brussels to follow the formation of Saint Luc.
Where are we ?
We are here in the Pigalle district, on the 9th arrondissement - the district called South Pigalle - in a former painter's studio. Like the neighborhood, I imagined for this apartment a colorful, vegetal and eclectic atmosphere , a mixture of eras that we find in the dark colors and the choice of furniture and lighting , antique or designed for the occasion.
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What were your inspirations for this apartment?
I designed this interior for several months, to work out every detail. For me, the most important thing was that the interior be in the same spirit as the exterior. I wanted the interior to reflect the spirit of the place, to be an extension of its environment. My inspirations were multiple. For several years, I look daily at magazines, specialized sites and I archive interiors and buildings that speak to me. When I start a new project, I go through this large personalized library and choose the inspirations that seem consistent with the spirit of the place and the inhabitants.
With this former workshop, you had to project yourself: the spaces were unstructured, austere and dark. For me, the challenge as an architect was to rethink the layout of the spaces, to make this place warm and enveloping. I wanted the apartment to be user-friendly with an open kitchen and a large living room. As the owners receive a lot, I wanted all the rooms to communicate with each other.
What is your favorite room in this apartment?
My favorite room is the living room. I like the colors, the atmosphere that emerges from this place. I like the laid-back, laid-back look of the waxed concrete bench with the sliding panels concealing the TV, and also the running shelf which brings a little decoration to the whole thing.
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What place does the second hand take in furnishing and decoration in your projects?
The second hand takes a very important place in each of my projects. I like to look for objects and furniture that have already been used, to give a place a soul , especially since I mainly work on old houses and apartments. As my work progresses, I try to integrate the old more and more. At the moment, I'm recovering old wood to make sliding panels, I'm installing carpenter's workbenches into washbasins, I'm putting up old doors. The craftsmen and I sometimes tear our hair out because adapting old on a construction site is much more complicated than buying new. It has so much more charm and our customers appreciate it!
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What is good taste for you?
For me, a tasteful interior is an interior that has personality, that reflects a person's taste, while revealing a place. Good taste is the mixture of these two aspects, always seeking the correctness of the gesture to give harmony to the whole.
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© Julien Hay
