Merging personal and professional needs: that was the aim of today's featured project, the renovation of a 1920's coffee-greinder house in Stuttgart, where Markus Benz - company director of furniture brand Walter Knoll – was looking for a place to serve both as family house and business meeting venue. The building's three floors have been divided accordingly: the ground floor is dedicated to business, the other two host the house of the Knolls. The entrance area is a deep purple hallway that leads to the individual rooms. The conference room is simultaneously designed to be used for hospitality. Its walls are painted dove grey using pigment-rich paints, which give them a particular depth. Above this colour runs a broad band executed in a satiny metallic paint, which has also been used on the ceiling.

The edges and corners of the walls curve gently, giving the room a soft and sensual charisma. A large round table stands upon a deep-pile rug. Above it hangs a globe light fixture, specially commissioned for the space and made from hand-blown, cut, crystal glass. A fully equipped catering kitchen on the ground floor caters to the hospitality needs of
guests. A door in a mirrored dividing wall leads through to the study. The colour palette here is continued with a fresh and intense blue. In the centre of the room stands the Walter Knoll Keypiece desk, which appears to float on a base and sideboard. The Cigar Lounge is the place for discussions in more relaxed surroundings. All the walls and shelves have been executed in a dark graphite grey, contrasting to the powerful mustard tone on the ceiling. The heart of the living area on the two upper floors is a generous, L-shaped room, which serves as living and dining space combined. Storage space has been integrated against the walls leading to the staircase: cabinets with fronts that have been painted a matt shade of green. The two doorways are contained within deep recesses, with sliding doors disguised as walls. Here too the furniture derives almost exclusively from the Walter Knoll collection, with also a contrasting design with artistic items from the furniture world. The table top of the long dining table, for example, is a unique original: a Persian textile was cast in tinted epoxy resin; pieces of cloth still hang out of the table top to each side. Haus Benz is an apartment and not a showroom. The owners’ brand and product world are displayed within a context that stands for the Benz family: a vibrant and very personal apartment, filled with artworks.

INFO: www.ifgroup.org

PHOTO COURTESY: Zooey Braun