Home About Contact

Yellowtrace

Yellowtrace •

An Ode to Gio Ponti: A 1920s Apartment in Milan by David/Nicolas.

Refurbishing a property designed by one architectural icon and redesigned by another can scare even the mightiest of architects. But the Lebanese design duo David Raffoul and Nicolas Moussallem of their namesake practice David/Nicolas, it seems, are immune to such angst, as evidenced by their latest project, an apartment in Milan dubbed Casa di Fantasia. Not only was the Haussmannian Art Deco-style home, constructed in 1923, designed by Mario Borgaro, it was refurbished by Gio Ponti twenty-nine
Yellowtrace •

All Eyes Up: An Apartment in Poznan by Paradowski Studio.

A high ceiling can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on which way you look at it. Just ask Zuza and Piotr Paradowski of Krakow-based design office Paradowski Studio, whose latest project, a 250-square-metre apartment in Poznan (a former Prussian medieval city situated on the banks of the Warta River), and more specifically, its five-metre ceiling, was a little bit of both. It was good, because it was, after all, a nice little hat-tip to the country’s postmodern past. It was bad because,
Yellowtrace •

Wild Wild West (Coast): Bust'n B Ranch in California by Studio Caban and Sydney Ballesteros.

Remember the 1992 Clint Eastwood movie Unforgiven? It was shot on a 480-acre ranch in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains just outside the Canadian town of Calgary. But as one particular property in California proves, it doesn’t take hiking all the way up to Canada (or anywhere else) to experience Eastwood’s wild wild west. Bust’n B Ranch, located about ten minutes from Pioneertown, a historic Hollywood western set town in California founded in 1946 by legendary Western actors such as Gene Autr
Yellowtrace •

Cocooned in Calm: An Apartment in São Paulo by André Braz.

Bringing an old home into the present, for better or worse, means undoing a bit of the past. Or, if you’re architect André Braz, a lot of it. As he tells it, his latest project, a soup-to-nuts renovation of a 1970s, 134-square-metre apartment in São Paulo’s Jardim Paulista neighbourhood, was thanks to a stroke of serendipity. “The client contacted the studio as soon as she bought the apartment, so we were able to conduct layout studies during the purchase negotiations,” he shares, noting that th
Yellowtrace •

Straight Out of a Storybook: A 1900s Home in Amsterdam by Barde vanVoltt.

There’s a house in Haarlem—the one in Amsterdam with two As, not the one in New York with one—that looks like it could belong in a Disney movie. It’s got perfectly pointed angles, shiny-as-wax windows and a storybook facade, and though it was built in the 1900s, its historic charm has somehow only grown over the decades, though not merely by chance. As designers Bart van Seggelen and Valérie Boerma of Amsterdam-based interior design studio Barde vanVoltt would tell you, it took a tiny bit of eff
Yellowtrace •

Sunlit Sanctuary: A Ranch-style Home in Santa Barbara by Corinne Mathern.

Corinne Mathern remembers feeling a psychic gravitational pull the first time she visited the Los Olivos, California property that would become her next canvas. “When I drove the hour up to the valley to visit the place and meet the clients, it was a breath of fresh air,” says the Santa Barbara-based interior designer, whose admission, evidently, doesn’t only allude to the abundant countryside oxygen.

The home, a 1980s ranch-style estate with a rambling ranch-style layout, was nestled deep insi
Yellowtrace •

Empty Nest Dream: An Apartment in Kirribilli by Amandine Simonetti Architecture and Interiors and Tsai Design.

Anyone who has mastered the art of empty nesting will tell you that there’s nothing empty about it. Take a vacation tomorrow? Done. Take a stand against cooking? Of course. Or, in the case of one Sydney-based couple, move back into the Kirribilli home they bought as newlyweds—check. The home in question, an apartment purchased decades prior, ticked many boxes in this season of life: it was a short walk from the city via the Harbour Bridge, and with no backyard, it was a low-maintenance dream—or
Yellowtrace •

Lighter than Light: A Country Villa by Grain Designoffice.

If there’s one thing that defines—and unites—spaces by Grain Designoffice, it’s an enduring sense of weightlessness. Walls the colour of sunlight. Furniture in amorphous shapes. Rooms that flow into each other like slow, meandering rivers. No different is the Belgian design studio’s latest project, a country villa in Antwerp, which goes check, check, check on all the aforementioned criteria.

A couple of years ago, however, this description wouldn’t have been quite so accurate. “The interior was
Yellowtrace •

Le Marais: A Luminous Apartment in Paris by Studio Haddou-DuFourcq.

‘Le marais’, in French, literally translates to ‘swamp’, but there’s nothing remotely swamp-like about Le Marais, an apartment in Paris recently redesigned by Studio Haddou-DuFourcq. Mind you, the same can’t be said about its state a few years ago. “Everything was dark,” recalls Kim Haddou, one half of the Paris-based interior design practice. “It looked like a dilapidated dollhouse.”

There was one small pink room, one small green room, one small brown room, and a small blue kitchen. Nothing, i
Yellowtrace •

Let There Be Light: Domingo in Barcelona by Aramé Studio.

In the Catelonian capital of Barcelona, sunshine follows you everywhere. Indoors and outdoors. Through summer and winter. From daybreak to dusk. Sometimes, even beyond. But as architects Andrea Arriola Fiol and Adrián Mellado Muñoz of Aramé Studio can confirm, that’s not always the case.

Their latest project, a residence in Barcelona’s Eixample district, used to be in the unlikely list of exceptions. “Gloomy, that’s what it was,” says Andrea of the property, which was as starved of light as of
Yellowtrace •

The White Cashew: A Rooftop Restaurant in Hyderabad by NaaV Studio.

In the leafy neighbourhood of Sainikpuri, in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, is a restaurant that stays true to its name. Shaped like an inverted cashew and steeped in soft, buttery hues, The White Cashew looks no different than it sounds. Inevitable, really, when the inspiration, as Varsha Reddy, one half of Hyderabad-based architecture firm NaaV Studio, puts it, was “slightly nuts.” Her admission isn’t without reason. The 418-square-metre rooftop joint, which specialises in fusion India
Yellowtrace •

Turning Back Time: Bar Nouveau in Paris by Atelier Alma.

On Paris’s Rue des Haudriettes is a bar with a floor intact from the 1970s. Or so a first look would have you believe. In reality, the floor wasn’t laid then, but it was made then. “One of the most remarkable features of this project is the restoration of the original opus incertum flooring,” says Aleksandr Kravtsov, associate architect at Atelier Alma, who, together with fellow architect Lana Kurova, helped bring back the seventies with authentic ceramic tiles sourced from a retailer specialisi
Yellowtrace •

Historic yet of the Moment: Haussmannian Apartment in Paris by Hauvette & Madani.

A renovation usually ends better than it begins, although Samantha Hauvette and Luca Madani of Paris-based architecture and interior design studio Hauvette & Madani would probably beg to differ. Their latest project—an apartment near Avenue Montaigne—isn’t just a renovation; it’s a renovation of a renovation that turns back the clock on its predecessor to restore and reveal what came before it: a place of true Haussmanian heritage.

By the time Samantha and Lucas came on board, that heritage was
Yellowtrace •

Historic yet of the Moment: Haussmannian Apartment in Paris by Hauvette & Madani.

A renovation usually ends better than it begins, although Samantha Hauvette and Luca Madani of Paris-based architecture and interior design studio Hauvette & Madani would probably beg to differ. Their latest project—an apartment near Avenue Montaigne—isn’t just a renovation; it’s a renovation of a renovation that turns back the clock on its predecessor to restore and reveal what came before it: a place of true Haussmanian heritage.

By the time Samantha and Lucas came on board, that heritage was
Yellowtrace •

Bedazzled: A Jewel-toned Home in Cork by Kiosk Architects and Kingston Lafferty Designs.

When the pandemic hit and people went into hibernation, Irish interior designer Roisin Lafferty did the opposite. She was enlisted by a young family—a couple with a little boy—to redesign their home in Cork, Ireland, over the lockdown. The family lived overseas and were planning at some point to move back to Ireland. But they first needed a place to call home. “We initially got to know them over Zoom,” recalls Roisin, principal at Kingston Lafferty Designs, who took up the project in collaborati
Yellowtrace •

Art Deco Gem: Mumbai Apartment by Atelier Varun Goyal.

The thing about designing a home with a sea view, of all places in a concrete megacity like Mumbai, is that the view trumps all else. No one stops to admire the decor or compliment the art or ooh and aah at that century-old lamp, rumoured to have been owned by a long-ago maharaja but in reality scavenged from Chor Bazaar (one of India’s largest flea markets). Architect Varun Goyal had none of those problems (nor, for that matter, did he scavenge a lamp from Chor Bazaar).

“He had a unique vision
Yellowtrace •

Tiny Haven: A 22-Square-Metre Apartment in Athens by Point Supreme.

Conventional wisdom holds that a home for three people should fit all three. But when one French couple and their close Italian friend, all three Paris-based, visited Athens and fell in love with the city, they decided they’d do anything to keep coming back. Even if it meant investing in a pied-à-terre much too small. So when they chanced upon a 22-square-metre room in a building in the city centre, they quickly made an offer. The catch? The space could only sleep two at a time.
Yellowtrace •

Walls Be Gone: A Rietveld-inspired Apartment in London by Studiomama.

Nina Thulstrup and Jack Mama, the husband-and-wife duo behind London-based design practice Studiomama, will be the first to tell you that downsizing doesn’t mean downgrading, at least not when it comes to residential design. So naturally, when they took on the task of transforming a dingy 55-square-metre lower ground-floor apartment in North London a few years ago, they were enthusiastic about uncovering its potential.

The apartment had many problems: the light was limited, the layout skewed, a
Yellowtrace •

Back to the 50s: La Relève in Marseille by Junod Marc Architects and Honoré.

In the Marseille district of Endoume, almost everyone knows La Relève, as did once their parents and their grandparents before them. Located on Rue d’Endoume, just around the corner from the Vieux-Port and Notre-Dame de la Garde, the bar-slash-B&B has been a much-loved local landmark since its inception as a bar de quartier in 1944. Owned by a local family, it was a regular watering hole for bus drivers, soldiers and the odd passerby. They’d pop in for an early morning coffee or jostle at the bar come sundown for an ale and an aperitif or two. The inn was handed down from generation to generation, in the last case from grandmother to granddaughter, until it was ultimately decided, in 2013, that there was no choice but to hand it over to someone else.
Yellowtrace •

Window to the Water: Venice Apartment by Eligo Studio.

No more than a few yards from the Church of San Marcuola, on the third floor of a sixteenth-century building in Sestriere di Cannaregio, is Venice. All of Venice. Not just the parts you read about, or the ones you ultimately, unwittingly experience as a tourist. Not the parts in guides and travel books, or in carefully edited vignettes on Instagram. These are the parts that are slower, calmer, wearier, and seldom seen by those who don’t stop long enough to notice. It’s these parts, these rare pa
Yellowtrace •

Water, Wine, Wood & Industry: The Rebello in Porto by Metro Urbe and Quiet Studios.

In the old days, Porto‘s Duoro River would glisten with rabelos filled to the brim with barrels of port wine. Over the years, the small wooden boats—unique to Porto—were eclipsed by faster, more efficient means of transport. But their significance never faded. Even today, they are common sights along the river, treating holidayers to a quick sail or two, and lining up in colourful rows along the waterfront. Their history is honoured in other ways too, by namesakes in the way of restaurants, cafe
Yellowtrace •

Lawson Flats Perth Members Club by Finespun Architecture and Ohlo Studio.

Lawson Flats has had many lives. Originally constructed as an apartment block in the Art Deco style in 1937, it once shared the skyline with some of the tallest buildings in Perth. Then came the 1980s, when the lower three floors were refurbished to make way for the Karrakatta Club, a women’s club that boasted a membership including Australia’s first elected female Parliamentarian. In 2022, the trifecta of floors was reborn yet again, this time as a swish members-only club for discerning, like-m
Yellowtrace •

Palazzo Luce: A Dazzling Hotel-cum-Gallery in Lecce by Anna Maria Enselmi.

Two Renaissance-style portals, emblazoned with the numbers 2 and 4, are the first indications that Palazzo Luce isn’t just another hotel. The internal courtyards confirm this suspicion, with excavated columns from a long-ago Roman theatre standing sentinel to the side, like stately guards awaiting their summons. The once-upon-a-time palace, situated in the Puglian town of Lecce, was constructed in the thirteenth century for the Counts of Lecce, but today it’s a rather different kind of majestic.
Yellowtrace •

Umberto121: A 14th-century Holiday Home in Tuscany by Montsant Moreno.

In the Tuscan hinterland, atop a knoll near Crete Senesi, lies the historic village of Montisi, one of five municipalities in Val d’Orcia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The village’s history is writ large across the dwellings that inhabit it, as evidenced by one particular home dating back to the 1300s. Exhibiting hallmarks of each century it’s survived, Umberto121 is a mediaeval curiosity that summons you into a world where time stands still.

When the present owners, a Barcelona-based couple w
Load More