Effe by Christian Tezza Architetto
Effe transforms a 110-square-meter apartment in San Bonifacio, Italy, into an intimate, measured home by Christian Tezza Architetto. The layout shifts around a new entrance volume, trading one bedroom for a generous living area that looks toward a mature park. Dark accents, warm timber, and carefully tuned lighting support a sequence that moves from shared rooms to a private suite with walk-in closet and sensorial bathroom.
Light from the park slides across warm walnut flooring and finds the dark line of the kitchen. A calm open room holds conversation, work, and quiet evenings in one measured volume.
This apartment in San Bonifacio is reworked as Effe, a 110-square-meter home organized around daily rituals rather than leftover corridors. Christian Tezza Architetto focuses on how finishes, furniture, and light respond to a clear brief: black kitchen, bathtub, walk-in closet, and a place that feels precisely tailored. The result is an interior where a few decisive elements carry both function and mood.
The original layout spreads circulation and weakens the entrance, so the project condenses and thickens that threshold instead. A new built-in volume sits against the shifted door and sets the tone for everything beyond, forming a practical mud room open toward the living area yet screened by a wall on one side and full-height storage on the other. Shoes and coats disappear behind doors, while small recessed spotlights pull the eye toward the open room ahead.
Framing The Entrance
That first sequence matters. A visitor steps into a compact zone where cabinetry and partition surfaces define edges, creating a pocket that absorbs daily clutter and winter layers. To one side, the fitted unit continues the dark line that will later outline the living core, while overhead, a run of discreet downlights guides movement toward the brighter open area. This approach lets the entrance feel deliberate rather than residual.
Layered Living Core
In the reconfigured day zone, one former bedroom is sacrificed so the main room can breathe and hold multiple uses without crowding. The black kitchen recedes along the back wall, slightly withdrawn from first view, so what reads initially is the dialogue between island and dining table. An island block mediates between cooking and social life, while the table carries a story: a brushed oak top salvaged from a family piece now rests on new tubular metal legs. At the far side, the bifacial My Taos sofa by Saba pivots attention between conversation and table, tying together lounging and meals without rigid separation.
Along one wall, a low element in Imperiale Marquina anchors the television and fireplace, giving evenings a darker, more intimate focus point. Walnut laid in a continuous run underfoot pulls all these parts together, read as one surface linking entrance, cooking area, and sitting zone. Above, a pair of Glo-Ball lights by Flos, a concealed LED strip tucked beneath a ceiling valance that hides the curtain track, and a single pendant over the table form a simple yet adjustable lighting system. Dimmers let the room slide from work-ready brightness to soft glow without changing the physical scene.
Quiet Night Suite
A flush door in the living room wall marks the passage to the more private rooms and keeps visual noise down. The guest bathroom off this short hall stays deliberately spare, with neutral ceramic, a wall-mounted sink that bridges between washbasin and utility, and white Hansgrohe fixtures set against the pale surfaces. Beyond, the main suite is handled through subtraction rather than ornament, with a Gervasoni Ghost bed, a deep night-blue headboard, and a single Spin suspension lamp by Arkolights in rose gold as a precise accent. An open walk-in closet, lit by a track with spotlights, lets clothing read almost like color in an adjacent gallery.
Material-Rich Bathing
The private bathroom attached to the suite shifts the palette and turns material into the main subject. Verde Alpi stone wraps the primary walls and forms a monolithic sink that flows out from the surface behind it, giving one continuous reading of color and veining. Nearby, a masonry shower and a freestanding bathtub anchor two distinct rituals, both wrapped in the same deep green. Wall-mounted black Hansgrohe fixtures punctuate the stone and temper the warmth of the room, so the setting feels focused and sensorial rather than decorative.
By the time the route loops back toward the living room, the whole apartment reads as a clear chain: an entrance that gathers and orders, a generous day room that opens toward the park, and a suite that protects sleep and bathing. Through it all, a dark line in kitchen fronts, built-ins, and stone details sharpens the perception of light filtering in from the trees outside. Effe holds that contrast between depth and brightness as its quiet, lasting theme.
Photography by Andrea Tran
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