Photography courtesy of The Modern House.
“I’ve never been by myself so much, but I’m treating this period as a good pause,” London designer Oscar Piccolo tells us.
“The beauty of this apartment is that it was an empty white canvas,” says Piccolo.”The challenge was figuring out how to distinguish areas: if the bed is always looking at you [that’s it just visible opposite the sofa], you have to set some boundaries.”
The one-room apartment is in an 18th-century building—located in an area called Shooter’s Hill, it was originally a military academy—with tall ceilings, stained glass clerestory windows, and interior shutters.
The carved pine 1940’s French chair —”its reminds me of the Flintstones”—is a favorite of Piccolo’s on long-term loan from Beau-Traps, his friend Maxime Fisher’s online antiques business.
Try this at home: Oscar draped his generic sofa in a large fringed drape that his mother gave him.
My mum being the creative one started to draw furniture, which she then had made—so I grew up with the idea that you could make things from scratch rather than just buy them,” he told The Modern House.
A flea market side table holds Piccolo’s miniature vase collection: “they’re all gifts from friends—they know I’m obsessed with vases.” The cardboard forms are maquettes for design projects.
The apartment came with a streamlined kitchen: the fridge is under the globe, a cupboard and bath are located to the left, and that’s the closet behind the double doors.
Piccolo describes his work as “an ongoing material research through sculpture, photography, furniture, lamps, and digital still-life compositions.” Shown here, a Cubist bust on a plinth that he made from bendable plywood.
Piccolo’s signature Lampada Cappello is but one of the sinuous lines in his bedroom corner. Until recently, assemblage, packing, and shipping took place in his apartment; Piccolo’s family in Sicily is now assisting with that.
The cut-out panel and serpentine column are more leftover props made of painted MDF.