A Breath of Fresh Air

“What I really didn’t want was a ‘home away from home’ feeling. I wanted to get away from the usual. After all, why go on holiday to what you already know?” Albane Paret’s vacation apartment in the Belgian port city of Ostend definitely isn’t “the usual”. The co-founder of PR agency Club Paradis (with her partner, Micha Pycke) has created a seaside getaway that feels more like a contemporary design gallery – a space that they plan to change annually.

We’ll get to the design itself soon, but what’s outside the windows is the first reason why this apartment has such appeal. Its huge curving bay windows give a wide embrace to the sea, and Paret says the vista “changes each day depending on the weather. You have both a view of the endless emptiness of the sea and a view of the harbour and jetty, where the fishing boats come and go.”

When the couple found the apartment it was “still in a 1970s vibe, with a lot of flowery wallpaper, and small rooms,” says Paret. However, there were also some appealing period features worth keeping, including the herringbone parquet floor and a marble fireplace, plus some later additions – the glass shelving in the niche next to the fireplace, and a mirrored wardrobe in one of the bedrooms – that would equally work with the contemporary furniture and art that they planned to install.

For Paret, Paradis Apartment is an evolving platform for the community of artists, designers and craftspeople she has cultivated through her professional and personal life. “The apartment and the concept were designed organically,” she says. “It features a selection of objects that I love or that are part of the work of designers with whom I have a great affinity.”

Everything here is for sale, which adds an exciting additional dimension to those that stay; but the real joy of this apartment is not its component parts but how it comes together as a whole.

While many of the pieces come from designers represented through Club Paradis, others are simply makers Paret admires. “My choices are largely determined by my emotions and love of the object,” she says. “Some designers I’ve followed over the past 10 or 15 years, others I discovered recently. But all the objects and practices have some kind of coup de foudre when I first saw them.”

Naturally, Paret takes inspiration from the sea and sky outside for what she has chosen too, from the blue and green to more steely silver and grey, and it feels inherently soothing as a result. The living room includes a grey hand-knotted rug by Muller Van Severen for CC-Tapis, while the dining table is in Douglas fir, stained a seaweed green, the work of Bruges-based Atelier Thomas Serruys.

While Paradis Apartment isn’t exclusively full of Belgian designers, it is nonetheless a little enclave of native names to know. Serruys also designed the almost alien-like Rollmaster steel chairs on castors surrounding the dining table, while in the living room there’s a white side table, low chair and table lights by Dutch-Belgian designer Linde Freya Tangelder of Destroyers/Builders. Ceramic tile paintings are a collaboration with Ghent’s Sofie Steegen.

“I like a certain sobriety, but where there’s room for different materials and eye-catching designs,” says Paret. She often plays off rigid right-angles and steely man-made materials with something organic – a perfect case is a wall lamp by Ana Kraš for Teget, made from a back-lit flat sheet paper that is handmade by Kraš, with all its soft imperfections, but clamped top and bottom in bars of brushed aluminium.

As for the apartment, Paret says that “It’s a very personal project; there is no distinction between our professional and private lives. We are surrounded by so many talented people – creators, designers, craftspeople, artists and even entrepreneurs – and it is a unique opportunity to collaborate with them.” And Paradis Apartment is not a static concept, but something fluid and dynamic – just like the stirring sea beyond its walls.

“I like a certain sobriety, but where there’s room for different materials and eye-catching designs,” says Paret. She often plays off rigid right-angles and steely man-made materials with something organic – a perfect case is a wall lamp by Ana Kraš for Teget, made from a back-lit flat sheet paper that is handmade by Kraš, with all its soft imperfections, but clamped top and bottom in bars of brushed aluminium.