Studio Sirach / Symbiose Interior Architecture & Design

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Text description provided by the architects.This basement renovation responds to the evolving lifestyle of a young couple and their children, who recently made their former vacation house their permanent home. With the upper floor no longer meeting their spatial needs, the lower level was transformed into a fully integrated living area, including a bedroom, bathroom, and generous storage solutions.Throughout the space, new built-in furniture is carefully integrated within the raw architectural context. The existing brick ceilings have been preserved and left exposed, celebrating the building's original materiality while embracing the building's original character.The intervention is anchored by a key architectural gesture: a new staircase that reconnects the previously disconnected basement to the main floor. Due to structural constraints, no alterations to the existing floor slab were possible. The design solution embraces this limitation with ingenuity, inserting a compact, playful stair that fits within the narrow footprint of the original opening. A series of wooden 'stepping stones' initiates the descent, leading into a white powder-coated metal staircase that balances solidity and visual lightness.