Architecture in Colour series treats colour as an architectural instrument rather than decoration—one that shapes space, proportion, and emotional experience as powerfully as form and light.
In the lively streets between Pigneto and Torpignattara in Rome, Margine transforms a fragmented 1930s apartment into Casa Tahiti, a vibrant domestic sanctuary where colour orchestrates a cohesive, pop-inspired landscape. Conceived for a young advertising professional seeking a positive retreat from the intensity of city life, the home unfolds around a luminous white terrazzo floor, a refined nod to Rome’s building tradition. Against this restrained backdrop, pink, ochre, yellow, blue, and deep green give each space a distinct identity, demonstrating how playful contemporary interiors can challenge the rigidity of historic layouts.
The project began with a challenging existing condition. Set within a pre-1939 building and altered through a series of renovations during the 1970s, the apartment had become narrow, fragmented and labyrinthine. Outdated wallpapers and successive additions further compromised circulation and natural light.
Margine responded by removing almost all of the internal partitions, opening the plan to create a generous shared space in which the living room and kitchen flow seamlessly into one another.
A white terrazzo floor unifies the main living areas, enhancing their sense of light and spatial continuity.
Referencing a material deeply rooted in Rome’s architectural tradition, it provides a restrained, luminous backdrop for the project’s more expressive interventions, allowing the bold colours and geometric elements to emerge with greater clarity.
The kitchen forms the first major architectural gesture within the open-plan interior.
A full-height pink volume is topped by an open shelving structure with colourful profiles, set against a white island, natural wood dining table and ochre-yellow sofa.
These interventions establish a series of visual relationships across the room.Opposite the kitchen, a custom-designed bookcase echoes its grid and proportions, while pink profiles frame the main living room wall, creating a subtle dialogue between the different elements of the space.
The same approach continues into the private quarters, where colour becomes a means of defining distinct domestic atmospheres.
The bathrooms are treated as compact architectural compositions, entirely clad in small ceramic tiles and articulated by contrasting grout lines that turn their surfaces into graphic patterns.
The master bathroom is conceived as a luminous yellow enclosure. The shower, integrated washbasin and surrounding surfaces are unified within the same monochromatic palette, creating an immersive space in which material and colour become inseparable.
At the opposite end of the apartment, the area dedicated to the client’s daughter takes the form of a small blue annex. Powder-blue geometric details shape the custom desk and sleeping alcove, allowing the limited volume to be carefully adapted to her needs.
The adjoining bathroom shifts to deep green, continuing the language of ceramic surfaces, coloured grout and coordinated details while establishing a distinct atmosphere of its own.
For Margine, each home is an island: a self-contained microcosm shaped around the needs, habits and emotions of its inhabitants.
In Casa Tahiti, this idea becomes an architecture of contrasts and connections, where a previously fragmented apartment is reorganised into a fluid domestic landscape and the project’s pop sensibility is translated into an architectural language of colour, geometry and atmosphere.
About Margine
Founded in 2012 by Giulio Ciccarese and Valentina Pontieri, MARGINE was established around a shared vision of architecture as a discipline capable of interpreting and accommodating the transformations of space in response to the evolving needs of people, nature, and society.
The studio’s ongoing research into formal, functional, and technological aspects of design informs a multifaceted architectural approach that seamlessly integrates creative vision with technical execution, ensuring careful control over quality, costs, and construction timelines.
Margine listens to and interprets each client’s needs, developing solutions that enhance both new and existing spaces. The practice oversees every stage of the building process, guiding clients from the initial feasibility assessment through design development and implementation, while providing technical and professional support throughout the entire project lifecycle.
The studio is also engaged in environmental and landscape enhancement projects, territorial planning, slow mobility networks, urban regeneration, and participatory urban design processes. Margine provides consulting services to both public and private institutions, supporting the economic and technical planning of complex interventions.
Margine operates from two offices: one in Rome, within a repurposed industrial space shared with artists, architects, and photographers; the other in Lecce, located along a historic street in the heart of the city’s old town.
Giulio Ciccarese was born in the province of Lecce in 1986. He graduated from Sapienza University of Rome in 2012 and specializes in feasibility studies, sustainability, and strategic planning.
Valentina Pontieri was born in Crotone in 1986. She studied at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture et de Paysage de Lille and graduated from Sapienza University of Rome in 2012. Within the practice, she leads research and design development.
Facts & Credits
Project title Casa Tahiti
Typology Residential, Interiors
Location Roma, Italia
Area 100 sqm
Year 2026
Architecture Margine | Giulio Ciccarese, Valentina Pontieri
Photography Nicolò Panzeri©
This project was submitted to Archisearch through the “Submit a Story” feature, where architects, designers, and creatives are invited to share their work for publication.