Adeline Giffon, interior designer: volume, light and materials

The experience continued in France with a chalet and apartments in a ski resort, and then in London with a 1,000-square-metre villa designed in a neoclassical style. Next came the two largest suites at the Cheval Blanc Paris, spanning 600 and 400 square metres respectively and taking nearly two years to complete.

The hospitality sector imposes constraints that are even stricter than those of residential projects. Over the course of five years, Adeline Giffon worked alongside seasoned tradespeople and craftsmen, developing an appreciation for the effectiveness of the general contractor model. Under this model, the client signs a single contract, and the company assumes responsibility for meeting deadlines, incurring penalties, and bearing liability for the site. The company also ensures coordination between the various trades. For the client, this means having a single point of contact, and for the project, it means having a clearer decision-making process.

Savoie, where she has lived for twenty-five years, beckoned her back. She then spent five years working in high-end property development there, mainly in the resorts of Savoie and Haute-Savoie. During this time, she built up a network of tradespeople, project managers, property dealers and developers.

Then came SEPIA, her agency. The acronym (SErvices et Prestations d’Intérieur et d’Architecture) also pays homage to vintage photography. “A project doesn’t exist unless it’s photographed,” she says.

From her time at Ateliers De France, Adeline Giffon has retained one key belief: that a project benefits from a consistent approach, from the initial design to the final touches.

At SEPIA, clients therefore have a single point of contact for the design and management of their projects. Adeline refines the plans, selects materials and commissions photorealistic 3D renderings so that everyone can visualise the project before work begins. She then oversees execution, ensuring architectural quality on site while working in coordination with project managers and contractors.

She has built up a network of more than forty contractors covering all trades, as well as around twenty craftspeople specialising in areas such as cabinetmaking, marble work, marquetry, bronze work, metalwork, stucco, tapestry and decorative plasterwork.

The principle is simple: to surround herself with professionals capable of attending to both the details and the schedule. This is particularly valuable in high-end projects, where the quality of the end result often depends on the precision of the execution.

Her British clients also appreciate being able to communicate in their own language, particularly in the Savoyard resorts, which have a significant international clientele.

Before materials and light existed, Adeline Giffon began working with volume. She considers the flow of movement, the perspectives and the way one room opens onto the next, ensuring that space is left to allow movement to remain natural. She seeks a layout that feels self-evident, as if no other were possible.

Villa G. in Aix-les-Bains provides a perfect illustration of this approach.

A paved courtyard leads to the double garage. A side path, sheltered by the roof, leads to the front door. The entrance and garage meet in a shared vestibule set apart from the living area, which houses the guest bathroom.

Three steps and a very short corridor lead to the living room, which opens out onto a double-height space. To the right is the kitchen; straight ahead, the countryside stretches out before you. From the sofa, the front door disappears from view.

The focus is on sequence, framing and circulation. Rather than creating a multitude of effects, the layout organises the functions so that the space feels fluid.

Lighting is also planned in advance. Adeline Giffon draws up her layout plan before consulting with the technical specialists. The spotlights are never positioned in the middle of a corridor; instead, they are offset so that they cast a soft glow along the wall. A strip of LEDs illuminates a shower recess and a curtain rail conceals a ventilation outlet.

The initial brief for Villa G. was succinct: an unusual layout and light everywhere.

The windows run the full height of the living room. These long vertical openings stretch the daylight and frame the surrounding countryside. The house has a dual-flow ventilation system, but the technical equipment remains almost invisible. In the living room, the air outlet is concealed behind a strip of parquet flooring on the ceiling and is framed by a black recessed joint. In the kitchen, the air intake is housed in the upper section of a cupboard behind a removable panel.

For Adeline Giffon, technical details should not dominate the view. They must find their place within the architecture.

Wood, ceramic and paint. The palette of Villa G. consists of just three materials, with oak as the unifying theme.

The oiled and brushed parquet extends to the underside of the dining room ceiling and all the way to the entrance, and then runs up the sloping walls of the double-height space. The floor and ceiling echo one another, making the space appear enveloped by a single material.

Oak is also used for cupboard doors, the headboard, stair nosings and risers, and the mezzanine balustrade handrail. To ensure continuity of design, a joiner reworked the parquet floor piece by piece — the only way to achieve a sufficiently uniform grain from the entrance to the mezzanine.

Then there is the tactile aspect, which the architect considers particularly important. The brushed wood has a soft, almost velvety texture to the touch.

The kitchen continues this quest for harmony. Its tones have a dark bronze effect, similar to the shades of the parquet flooring. Meanwhile, the island was designed as a freestanding unit, raised off the floor to create a sense of lightness.

The clients also wanted green to be the dominant colour. A grey-green shade was chosen and can be found in the entrance hall, the guest bathroom, on one of the staircase walls, in the master suite’s walk-in wardrobe, on the master bedroom ceiling and in subtle touches throughout the living room. The kitchen island is made of green Fenix and the panoramic wallpaper in the dining room features the same shade.

Outside, the same minimalist approach continues. The swimming pool blends into the terrace, forming a direct extension of the house. The garden has a wavy layout designed by the architect and planted by a landscape gardener with mainly evergreen plants so that it retains its greenery even in winter.

There is no render on the façades. The housing estate regulations stipulated grey tones, and the aluminium cladding complies with this using a shade close to quartz grey with a slightly warm undertone.

The chimney on the front gable has been designed as a single, continuous unit that rises from the ground and appears to emerge from the roof in one line. The Equitone panel, which has been chosen in a light shade, contrasts with the grey tones of the cladding and lends the façade its full grandeur.

The metal cladding rises from the ground, runs along the roof, and descends again without any visible rainwater downpipes or gutters. The house is thus freed from the roof overhang, taking on a Nordic-inspired silhouette.