For architects Valentina Pontieri and Giulio Ciccarese, every home is an island. The two — who founded their Rome-based practice Margine Studio in 2012 — approach each residential project as an opportunity to create “a unique and self-contained microcosm designed around the needs, habits and emotions of its inhabitants.” Eschewing rigidity and formality for fluidity and flexibility, Margine crafts spaces that feel open, pragmatic (yet not boring) and, above all, deeply personal. 

The recently completed Casa Tahiti in their home city is a prime example of Margine’s transformative and custom tailoring. Located in an up-and-coming neighbourhood between Pigneto and Torpignattara, the apartment in question was situated in a pre-1939 building and had been fragmented through a series of renovations conducted during the 1970s. The client, a young advertising creative, wanted his home to better reflect his and his daughter’s lifestyle and to be a “retreat where he could disconnect from the intensity of work and the pressures of city life.” When meeting with the client for the first time, he came to them with “only two certainties” beyond that. “He wanted a pink kitchen and a yellow sofa,” say the architects.   

First to be addressed was the spatial challenge of the chopped-up layout, which was narrow and labyrinthine with no clear circulation or access to natural light. The architects “liberated the floor plan” by removing nearly all of the internal partitions in the main living space along with knocking down ones in the sleeping area; a longitudinal structural wall separating the public zones from the private ones was kept. This opened the living room to the kitchen and created one generous, free-flowing space. 

To create a cohesive “visual thread” throughout the entire home, the architects installed white terrazzo flooring in every room and hallway — a material choice inspired by ancient Roman construction methods. The luminous flooring creates a backdrop that plays with the perception of space and light and is enhanced by the crisp yet enveloping white that covers every wall. “We didn’t have to do any colour tests because we rely on a proven warm white tone that we consistently use in our projects,” say the architects. 

Next came the colour. With the aforementioned pink and yellow in mind, Pontieri and Ciccarese devised a “complete colour palette to create a balanced chromatic ‘rainbow’” that has a striking clarity against the all-white envelope. Anchoring the kitchen and living area is a full-height pink volume that conceals the fridge and houses storage: slender pull-out cabinets (one for glassware and the other a general pantry) flank either end of the installation and a recessed cabinet over the sink serves as an out-of-sight dish drainer; the full-depth upper cabinet is a secondary pantry. A custom open-shelving unit tops the kitchen’s cabinetry, with its profiles painted the same pink. The island and countertop, both made from Krion by Porcelanosa in a “pristine” white, provide functionality while letting the pink cabinetry sing, and a sleek linear Yoko pendant from Ideal Lux has a barely-there presence. 

A custom bookcase along the opposite wall of the main living space echoes the one in the kitchen in its geometry and pink-painted profiles, creating a visual balance and “coherent dialogue that unifies the entire open plan space.” The desired yellow sofa has pride of place in the living area and serves to ground the space as well as offer a comfortable spot to lounge. 

In the private quarters, Margine Studio used colour as a “defining architectural element” to bring distinction rather than as a purely decorative choice. While the primary bedroom is bathed in white, the bathroom here is absolutely drenched in yellow: The concrete countertop and shower were treated with a bright-yellow resin coating, while the square white ceramic tiles that clad the walls and floor are contrasted by grout in the same lemony hue. Meanwhile, in the daughter’s chambers at the opposite side of the apartment, powder blue plays the starring role. The bedroom features a cozy sleeping alcove and a built-in bookcase and custom desk, with all three treated to licks of powder blue on the profiles and supports. In her bathroom, the concrete elements have been coated with a complementary green-tinted resin. The treatment of white ceramic tiles with yellow grout is repeated here to continue the overall geometric language. 

With the reconfigured and refreshed Casa Tahiti, Margine Studio has created an inviting space in keeping with the client’s wishes — a place of retreat and peace that anyone would be happy to come home to.