A four-level L-shaped townhouse in Paris’s 11th arrondissement is reworked as a quiet interior landscape oriented to a private courtyard and garden. The project by Holzrausch Studio organizes living around a skylit stair and a disciplined palette of oak, plaster, stone, and stainless steel, using built-in elements and concealed services to foreground proportion, joinery, and light.
Private Townhouse in Paris Technical Information
- Architects: Holzrausch Studio
- Location: 11th arrondissement, Paris, France
- Gross Area: 353 m2 | 3,800 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years: 2023 – 2025
- Photographs: © Salva López
Our philosophy has always been simplicity, minimalism, and timelessness. This project reflects that completely, guided by a fascination with materials that is visible throughout.
– Petri, Holzrausch Studio
Urban Seclusion and Threshold Strategy
Set behind a gate and reached by a long courtyard, the townhouse constructs a calibrated sequence of thresholds that softens the transition from street intensity to domestic quiet. The approach compresses and releases movement, using distance and layered enclosure to frame a garden and house that are largely withdrawn from the public realm. This choreography establishes acoustic and visual respite without retreating from the urban condition.
The plan forms an L around the garden, turning all openings inward. By limiting exposure to the street and concentrating apertures on the courtyard, the dwelling creates a stable microclimate and a consistent visual horizon for interior spaces. The arrangement supports privacy and provides larger, more generous openings to the garden side, allowing the house to expand outdoors during warm seasons without compromising seclusion.
Daylight as Spatial Organizer
Because all lateral windows face the courtyard, daylight from above becomes a primary strategy. New skylights feed a vertical light well shaped by an undulating central staircase, distributing illumination to four levels and reducing reliance on artificial light during the day. The stair does more than transmit light; its varying profiles and soffits modulate glare, creating a measurable gradient from the top floor to the basement.
As the spine of the house, the stair organizes circulation and sections. Landings align with key moments in the plan, setting up cross-views between rooms and the garden, and establishing continuity across floors. The curved timber balustrade and open riser proportions promote visual porosity, so the stair reads as a shared spatial volume rather than a discrete object. Recessed luminaires embedded in the stringers maintain the legibility of daylight while providing even night lighting without visible fixtures.
Material Discipline and Tectonic Clarity
A concise palette structures the interior: oak for wall paneling, built-ins, and selected floors; fine plaster for walls and soffits; stone for key horizontal surfaces; and stainless steel concentrated in the kitchen. Existing concrete floors are retained where appropriate, adding thermal mass and a textural counterpoint to the warmer timber. The clear role of each material reduces visual competition and helps users read how the house is assembled.
Built-in furniture and concealed appliances compress the program into the envelope, leaving planes and junctions to carry the architectural expression. Fully recessed lighting allows surfaces to remain uninterrupted, emphasizing reveals, shadow gaps, and the cadence of panel joints. Coordination between carpentry, plasterwork, and lighting is evident at terminations and corners, where precise edge conditions maintain continuity across substrates without resorting to gratuitous trim.
The close relationship between design and fabrication supports this precision. Specialist plasterwork achieves matte, light-diffusing finishes that neutralize glare from the skylights, while the oak joinery demonstrates consistent grain direction and carefully proportioned finger pulls rather than applied hardware. In the kitchen, stainless steel is detailed as a monolithic working surface against oak cladding, creating a measured dialogue between tactile warmth and utilitarian resilience.
Program, Circulation, and Indoor–Outdoor Living
The 353-square-meter house spans four levels, including a compact basement, and accommodates four bedrooms and four bathrooms, organized around the central stair. Programmatic zones are stacked to balance privacy and proximity: family spaces cluster on the garden level, bedrooms occupy the quieter upper floors, and support areas are tucked below grade. Circulation remains legible and efficient, with short runs and broad landings that also act as light collectors.
Large doors open directly to the front garden, extending the living areas outdoors during warm months and reinforcing the plan’s inward-facing orientation. Integrated storage, continuous paneling, and the deliberate absence of decorative elements keep rooms visually clear, allowing light and proportion to define character. This restraint creates an adaptable backdrop for daily life, where use can shift seasonally without altering the architectural order.
Environmental performance is addressed through passive means rather than expressive technologies. The garden buffers the dwelling from street noise and heat, the retained concrete provides thermal stability, and the skylit stair distributes daylight deep into the plan. Together, these strategies yield a calm interior climate and a coherent domestic setting that privileges material longevity and spatial clarity over accumulation.
About Holzrausch Studio
Holzrausch Studio is a German design practice based in Munich, founded as a woodworking workshop that later expanded into a fully integrated design and fabrication studio. Since it evolved into a dedicated design office, it has maintained in-house production capabilities, enabling meticulous attention to detail. Known for their commitment to simplicity, minimalism, and timeless design, Holzrausch delivers bespoke interiors that emphasize material quality, craftsmanship, and seamless spatial composition.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: Private
- Other contributors: Lighting from Denmark
- Other contributors: Plasterwork from Italy
- Other contributors: Oak floors from Denmark
- Research references or publications: ArchEyes article
