The creative duo behind jewellery brand Pandora found their own private gem in this Italian apartment
LIVING AREA
At the centre of the home, this space is an expression of Francesco and Alessandro’s approach to art and design. ‘For us, creativity feeds on imagination and the ability to take risks. We’re eclectic, but linear. We love working on form, material, function and colour, with a sense of fun.’
The download
Francesco Terzo and Alessandro Filippo Ficarelli, creative directors of international Danish jewellery brand Pandora. The duo worked with architect Salvatore Massone to realise their design vision.
A 260sq m apartment in a 1930s building in central Milan. It has been renovated to create an entrance leading to a T-shaped, open-plan living space with kitchen, dining area and a studio that can be shut away behind glass doors. There is a main suite with a wardrobe room and bathroom, plus a second bedroom and bathroom.
STUDIO
At the end of the dining area, the studio can be open or closed off by black metal-framed glass doors. ‘It’s like looking into our minds and our inspirations – it was conceived as a Wunderkammer.’
Tata – ‘nanny’ in Italian – might seem an unusual nickname for an apartment, but it shows the fondness Francesco Terzo and Alessandro Filippo Ficarelli felt for this place, located in a 1930s building near Milan’s central station, right from the start. ‘It was the first house we saw. It had been uninhabited for over 20 years, but retained its own energy,’ they recall. It seemed to transmit a sense of affection, ‘as if she wanted to be adopted.’
With much to do to get this time capsule into shape – there was green silk wallpaper throughout, electric blue carpet in the bedroom and pastel bathrooms – work began in earnest, as the duo divided their lives between Milan and Copenhagen. They were keen to transform the space into something of their own, while honouring its past. ‘We have safeguarded the stuccos, the parquet, the two original arches and window details,’ they say.
The planning phase was especially challenging: ‘The house is wide with a very particular layout,’ they explain. The concept of a domus – ‘with environments that are distributed and connected in a path of useful functions that can be transformed according to the occasion’ – was the key to the final configuration.
This path starts at the entrance, where the living room is revealed through three ar
