Building or renovating a home that reflects its owners’ passions requires thoughtful planning that goes beyond standard room layouts. A 95-square-meter apartment in Milan, designed by ATOMAA for a young couple passionate about reading, cinema, design, and music, demonstrates how to integrate personal interests into every corner of a home. The design uses bookshelves, color contrasts, and open-plan spatial sequences to create a home that narrates the story of those who live within it. Key design decisions revolve around the placement of a single long bookcase that anchors the living zone while providing access to a hidden study, proving that storage can double as architecture.
Open-Plan Layouts with Integrated Book Storage
The Milan apartment transforms a traditional living room into an open space anchored by a long bookcase that runs the length of the partition between the living and study areas. Modern residential design increasingly integrates technology and storage into the architecture itself rather than relying on freestanding furniture. The bookcase in this apartment serves as wall, storage system, room divider, and passage all at once.
The Bookcase as a Room Divider
A full-height bookcase serves both as storage and partition. Unlike a solid wall, a bookcase allows glimpses of the space beyond, maintaining visual connection while defining separate zones. The Milan design extends this concept by integrating the study door into the bookcase itself, with panels painted in intense yellow that signal the transition from entertainment space to private quarters.
Portal Door Integration
Large portal doors set within the bookcase create a dramatic reveal when opened. These doors are fully concealed within the shelving when open, so the bookcase reads as a continuous surface. The yellow interior panels provide a deliberate color pop that marks the shift in function from open entertaining area to private study or guest room. The same portal sequence extends toward the kitchen and dining room on the opposite side, creating a cross-axis of sightlines that makes the 95-square-meter apartment feel significantly larger.
| Bookshelf Configuration | Depth Required | Storage Volume | Additional Function |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wall-mounted shelves | 20-30 cm | Low to medium | Display only |
| Freestanding bookcase | 30-40 cm | Medium | Portable divider |
| Full-height partition bookcase | 35-45 cm | High | Room divider + door integration |
| Double-sided bookcase wall | 50-60 cm | Very high | Access from both sides |
Color and Material Choices for Reading Spaces
Color selection plays a fundamental role in the Milan apartment’s design. The kitchen zone features decorative wallpaper inspired by British domestic interiors, while the main living space uses a colorful concrete grit floor that creeps into every room. Reader-focused homes benefit from color schemes that balance stimulation with calm, creating environments where concentration comes naturally and relaxation follows.
Decorative Wallpaper as a Zone Marker
A partition divides the original kitchen space into two distinct zones: a compact dining room characterized by decorative wallpaper inspired by British domestic interiors, and a minimal, elegant, and functional kitchen. The wallpaper defines the dining area as a separate experience within the open plan without requiring additional walls. This technique works well in apartments where creating distinct rooms would block natural light or disrupt circulation.
| Color Scheme | Psychological Effect | Best Reading Zone | Lighting Requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warm neutrals with green accents | Calm, grounded | Main reading area | Warm 2700K-3000K |
| Pastel pink with dark green | Balanced, stimulating | Study or bathroom retreat | Mixed 3000K-4000K |
| Intense yellow with white | Energetic, focused | Study transition zone | Cool 4000K |
| Deep blue with warm wood | Deep concentration | Library corner | Task lighting at 3500K |
Designing Multi-Functional Living Spaces
The existing living room in the Milan apartment, originally defined by walls, corridors, and a washroom, changed completely to become a large open space. Home automation systems enable lighting and shading adjustments that allow the same open area to function as a cinema room in the evening and a bright reading space during the day. The apartment opens through a sequence of large portals toward the kitchen and dining room on one side and toward a reading nook and bow window on the other.
The Living Room That Transforms
A single living area serves multiple functions across the day. Morning light floods the reading nook through the bow window. Midday activities center around the dining table visible through the portal sequence. Evening entertainment shifts to the area near the bookcase wall, where the portal doors to the study can close for privacy. This daily rhythm of use requires no furniture rearrangement or structural changes, only the opening and closing of integrated panel doors.
- Morning: reading nook with natural light from bow window, study open for work
- Midday: dining and kitchen zone active, living room as pass-through circulation
- Afternoon: study zone for focused work, living room for breaks and casual reading
- Evening: living room for conversation and cinema, study doors closed for guest privacy
The Bathroom as a Designed Space
The Milan apartment treats the bathroom as a non-secondary environment, designing a real salle de bains with refined, tailor-made spaces. Complete home renovations often treat bathrooms as utilitarian afterthoughts, but this project demonstrates the impact of integrating the bathroom into the overall design language. The bathroom is divided into soft and fluid spaces that welcome a series of carefully selected design objects.
Color-Contrast Bathroom Design
Pastel pink and dark green tile alternate elegantly in the bathroom, creating a bright contrast against matte black finishes chosen for taps, shower profiles, mirror frames, and the washbasin. Every detail from tile layout to fixture placement was coordinated to create a coherent visual experience rather than a collection of individual products.
Pass-Through Shower Layout
The shower acts as a passage element that connects the master bathroom, accessible from the bedroom, to the secondary guest bathroom. This functional transition eliminates additional distribution spaces to the service areas and filters light from the master bathroom through a large integrated high-level window into the secondary bathroom. The pass-through shower saves approximately 2 to 3 square meters of floor area compared to a conventional layout with separate corridors serving each bathroom.
Flooring Continuity Across Zones
The concrete grit floor runs continuously from the living room through the sequence of portals into the kitchen, dining area, and reading nook. Home energy labeling programs rate concrete flooring favorably for its thermal mass properties, which help stabilize indoor temperatures in climates with significant day-night temperature swings. The continuous flooring also eliminates transition strips and threshold breaks, reinforcing the visual flow between zones.
Concrete Grit Flooring Benefits
| Flooring Type | Thermal Mass | Visual Continuity | Maintenance | Installation Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Concrete grit polished | High | Excellent (seamless) | Low (sealed surface) | $15-30 per sq ft |
| Engineered hardwood | Low | Good (planks) | Medium (refinishing) | $8-18 per sq ft |
| Porcelain tile | Medium | Good (large format) | Low (grout cleaning) | $7-20 per sq ft |
| Luxury vinyl tile | Low | Moderate | Low | $5-12 per sq ft |
Concrete grit flooring requires professional installation with proper curing and sealing to prevent staining. In the Milan apartment, the colored concrete grit serves as both a practical surface and a deliberate design statement that unifies the otherwise varied zones of the home.
Appealing to Modern Urban Homebuyers
The design of the Milan apartment targets the real-world needs of a young couple who work, entertain, and relax at home. Changing housing demand among younger buyers emphasizes flexible spaces that accommodate multiple activities within the same floor plan. The apartment’s design responds to these shifts by eliminating single-purpose rooms in favor of zones that layer multiple functions throughout the day.
What Design-Savvy Buyers Look For
The Milan apartment shows that designing for specific passions, in this case reading, does not require sacrificing openness or functionality. By integrating the bookcase into the architecture, choosing deliberate color contrasts, and treating every room including the bathroom as a design opportunity, the 95-square-meter home accommodates a rich daily life without feeling cramped or cluttered.