Tiny House 11sqm in Paris by Batiik Studio

The French firm Batiik Studio designed a tiny house in Paris with arched and sunset-tinted alcoves and a jolt of oceanic cobalt blue peeking through a built-in wall.

Architect: Batiik Studio
Location: Paris 10°
Completed: Feb 2017
Area: 11sqm
Budget: 28,000€
Photography: Bertrand Fompeyrine

From the architect: When the apartment's owners approached Rebecca Benichou, the principal at Batiik Studio, about transforming this former maid's quarter into a short-term rental to host via Airbnb, Benichou took inspiration from Morocco before Greece—"but nobody can see that," she adds with a laugh. She and her collaborator, Sarah Chayeb, were tasked with choosing a design that stood out amid the other endless rental options in the popular city, without being too "risky" with the look. They decided on a muted color scheme—crisp white for most of the walls and a pale terra-cotta to delineate the built-in kitchenette, plus that aforementioned bold-but-mostly-hidden blue—and a trio of built-out arches to house the most functional components of the space. A futon plays living room and bedroom anchor in one, while a sage green IKEA side table plays the same coffee table-to-nightstand game.

While there isn't a stove (you don't need it—you're in Paris and alternating between croissants and crêpes), most other amenities are present though cleverly tucked away: a mini-fridge and microwave behind cabinets in the kitchenette, a bathroom disguised as a full-length mirror, and a closet housing the washer and dryer in another archway beside the bed. Like a page from a pop-up book, an ingenious café table can be extracted from one of the walls, that Santorini blue peeking through once it's locked in place. A TV is hidden in the cabinets above.

The brilliant part isn't just that they squeezed so much into such an itsy bitsy space—it's that with all the bespoke cabinets closed, you'd never know it was all there in the first place.

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