From the Experts · No. 01 · October
Atelier HA
Ten pieces from the Curiouz collection, curated by Atelier HA. Reflecting Hugo and Adèle’s studio ethos, this curation focuses on form, material tension, and objects that bring life to a room.
Hugo and Adèle at the Saint-Cloud house by Atelier HA. Photo: Clément Vayssières.
The curation
Ten pieces with presence
Unbound by a single era or designer, this curation focuses on distinctive silhouettes, tactile or reflective materials, and a subtle sense of displacement or surprise. Some are highly expressive, others much quieter, and this tension between them is precisely the point.
“We are more interested in finding the right piece than an iconic one.”
Atelier HA
The experts
Starting from a site's history, its purpose, and the people who will inhabit it, Atelier HA transforms restaurants, hotels, public spaces, and private homes into distinct, self-contained worlds.
Driven by material, colour, light, proportion, and detail, their work draws references from cinema, fashion, and design across diverse eras, shaping spaces defined by a strong identity and a vivid sense of life.
Two pieces the studio would keep
Why these, above all
I · The Fantoni cabinet
A small piece of architecture
“It is exactly the kind of piece that, in an otherwise very simple interior, can completely transform the atmosphere on its own.”
Natural walnut paired with deep red lacquer and shifting, asymmetrical shelves. Monumental in scale and open on every side, it acts as a room divider as readily as a sculpture.
View the cabinet
II · The Ciuingam sofa
A soft mass
“There is something very joyful and uninhibited about this piece, a time when design really knew how to have fun.”
Drawn in 1967 by De Pas, D’Urbino and Lomazzi and wrapped entirely in leather, it yields an inviting and enveloping form that brings instant warmth and sculptural softness to an interior.
View the sofaIn conversation
Hugo and Adèle on sourcing, period and the right piece
Where does a project begin?
“We rarely start by immediately drawing a floor plan. First, we try to understand what story the space should tell. It might begin with an image, a film, a material, a particular era or a combination of colours.”
Why do you keep coming back to older pieces?
“Above all, because of its singularity. A vintage piece introduces another sense of time into a space. We don’t see vintage and contemporary design as opposites. It is precisely the tension between the two that interests us.”
What do you look for in a piece?
“First, its silhouette and proportions. Then the material, construction, patina and condition. But what matters most is whether it has enough personality to hold its own within the project without taking over the entire space.”
How do you know it will work in a room?
“An object can be beautiful on its own and feel completely wrong once placed within a space. So we look less at the piece in isolation and more at the relationship it will create with its surroundings: its scale, height, material, colour and the way people will move around it.”
What is hard about sourcing older pieces?
“The main challenge is uncertainty. When you find the perfect piece, you have to very quickly verify its dimensions, condition, provenance, restoration requirements, transport and availability. For a studio, saving time on all these checks is almost as important as the quality of the selection itself.”
Which period keeps drawing you back?
“The 1960s and 1970s, without ever trying to literally recreate those decades: generous forms, glossy materials, plastic, chrome, unapologetic colour. We prefer to use these references as a vocabulary to transform rather than an aesthetic to reproduce.”
Off the record
Adèle
- First vintage piece
- A chest of drawers found in Belgium, turned into a bathroom vanity for a client.
- The one that got away
- Gaetano Pesce’s Nobody’s Perfect cabinet, 2002.
- Always returns to
- Gaetano Pesce.
- A film to live inside
- The Fifth Element: a future that is colourful, chaotic and inhabited, never white and sterile.
Off the record
Hugo
- First vintage piece
- An industrial cabinet from the Saint-Ouen flea market, bought for his sixteenth birthday.
- The one that got away
- The Terrazza sofa by Ubald Klug for De Sede.
- Always returns to
- Dimore Studio and Ettore Sottsass.
- A film to live inside
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The studio's work
Atelier HA, in their own rooms
Four homes in and around Paris, where colour, reflection and a slight imbalance do the work.
Projects by Atelier HA: Saint-Cloud, photography Clément Vayssières; Saint-Ouen and Paris, photography Amaury Laparra; Pigalle, Paris.
On colour
Three palettes on the studio's table
For Atelier HA, a bold palette is a matter of hierarchy, not quantity: one colour becomes the backdrop, another appears selectively, a third creates the break. Finish counts as much as hue, and steel, mirror, wood or stone give the eye somewhere to rest.
Warm and polished at once. In the selection: the cognac leather of the Ciuingam, the amber resin of the tortoiseshell lamp, the chromed steel of the Sirius.
A colour used with precision, then fragmented by reflection. In the selection: the oxblood lacquer of the Fantoni cabinet, the gloss red of the DL5 Lampione, the French chrome wall light.
Deep, slightly muted, difficult to name: the kind of colour the studio trusts to age well, because it belongs to the project rather than the season.
For your next specification
Specifying a piece from this selection?
Save any piece to a project, place it on hold while your client decides, and ask for an all-inclusive delivery quote. Our team can share further dimensions, condition notes and timings.
Go to my projectsAbout From the Experts
An insider look at choosing a piece
Each edition invites a featured interior studio to filter the Curiouz collection through their own design lens. Their selections, and the thinking behind them, reveal how the people who build rooms for a living decide what goes in them.
Be the next expert
Curate a coming edition
Each month, one studio from the Curiouz Pro community selects ten pieces from the collection and talks us through the way it works. If your practice has a point of view on how a room comes together, we would like to hear from you.
Featured studios are published on curiouz.com and curiouzpro.com, and shared with our audience across the UK, the US and Europe.
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