casa degli Equi

In Rome's San Lorenzo district there is an apartment where a young doctor lives. It is in a late 19th-century building originally designed for working-class occupation, with the architectural typology of the communal balcony house.
This was one of the buildings damaged during bombing in 1943 and it still bears the scars on its facade, they were never rebuilt. It is where, in 2018, the Italian street artists Guerilla Spam painted their enormous 'murals against war'.

From the balcony, a common area shared by all residents, one enters the apartment, a long and narrow rectangle. Entry is by means of a doorway on one of the short sides, the sole window is (at the far end) on the wall opposite.
Not wishing to interrupt the visual axis connecting these two sources of natural light, the living space has been developed to the left and right of it. This imagined line is emphasised by a black (lighting) track on the ceiling, illuminating the apartment running the whole of its length.
The challenge was to devise an extremely functional apartment within less than 40 square metres. The space is divided into three 3.5 metre cubes. The first, defined by sage green flooring and wallcoverings, comprises the entrance hall, kitchen, bathroom and utility room; the second and third, separated by custom-made birchwood furnishings while retaining the original flooring, houses a sitting/dining room and study and, beyond, a bedroom with closets.

Designer pieces are mixed in with the custom furnishings, such as the 'Leggera' chair by Gio Ponti for Cassina and the 'Elettra' chair by BBPR for Arflex, some vintage pieces from the 80s such as a folding games table and a black wooden chair, with other contemporary pieces such an Ikea desk and the Led-A tablelamp by Valeria Aretusi and Dygodesign.
As an echo of the large murals on the facade, works by contemporary street artists, among whom Invader, Clet, Chiara Anaclio and Vantees from the Uovo alla Pop gallery decorate the interior and, as if winking to them, two small paintings in oil, reproductions after 18th-century originals by Boucher and Spaendonck, by architect Carla Arrabito’s dad.