A bathroom with a toilet and a basket
In the main bedroom, Studio Haos’s bamboo pendant and a vintage Italian bench frame the door to the bathroom, where the ceramic tile–clad custom tub is backdropped by a Rosa Estremoz marble dado. Photography courtesy MARIE GRAUNBOL/LIVING INSIDE

December 20, 2024

Words: Peter Webster

This Design Duo’s Lisbon Apartment Is A Study In Ceramics

French duo Olivier Garcé and Clio Dimofski took a circuitous route to Lisbon, Portugal, where their 2,300-square-foot apartment doubles as a gallery for their eponymous multidisciplinary practice. The couple met studying design at Paris’s École Carmondo, completed second degrees at the École d’Architecture de Paris-La Villette, and then decamped to Beijing for a year. “It was just after the Olympics,” Garcé reports, “and we got to experience the impact of two cultures on contemporary design and architecture.” Back in Paris, individual stints at firms like Shigeru Ban Architects and Hamonic + Masson & Associés preceded a move to New York to launch an office for Pierre Yovanovitch Architecture d’Interieur, before returning to Europe in 2021—daughter Zoë and dog LeWitt in tow—to open a studio of their own.

Lisbon beckoned for a number of reasons. “My mother’s Portuguese,” Garcé says, “so there was already a close connection.” More importantly, the couple wanted their practice to involve local craftspeople, something they felt would be easier to achieve in Portugal where, Dimofski notes, “There’s so much to discover and develop.” The apartment-gallery is on the second floor of a late 19th–century Pombaline-style building featuring solid-color exterior tilework rather than the ornate azulejos of earlier periods. The interior, however, doesn’t lack for elaborate plasterwork and moldings, which the couple carefully preserved when renovating the run-down property, “to keep the soul of the space,” as Dimofski puts it. Outfitted with a mix of new and vintage pieces, contemporary art, and the designers’ own distinctive handcrafted furniture and products, the light-filled quarters reflect their ethos and aesthetic perfectly.

A man and woman standing in a doorway
Flanked by a pair of their Almond glazedceramic sconces, the founders of Garcé & Dimofski stand in the entry of their second-floor apartmentgallery in the buzzy Arroios neighborhood of Lisbon, Portugal.

“It’s about materiality, too,” Garcé continues, “using marble, stone, wood, and ceramic.” The last is particularly important, appearing as massive sculptural legs on the Mimi coffee table, for example, or as wall tiles with a painterly glaze—developed with artist-potter Lígia Guedes—in the kitchen. Similar tiles in a larger format are used as baseboards in the dining room. The clay is locally sourced, as is the chest­nut that tops the coffee table, composes the chunky Hélios sofa, or panels a wall in the study. Local design and art includes a Studio Haos aluminum dining table and several Pedro Batista paintings, while Korean American talent Minjae Kim, a frequent collaborator, is represented by characterful chairs, tables, and lighting that epitomize the apartment-gallery’s creatively eclectic spirit. 

Ceramic Details Abound In Olivier Garcé and Clio Dimofski’s Lisbon Home

A wooden couch with a white cushion
Featuring a chestnut body on massive ceramic feet, the Hélios sofa incorporates two of the couple’s favorite materials. Photography courtesy of Garcé & Dimofski.
A chair with a metal frame and a black seat
Garcé & Dimofski’s brushed stainless–steel Luis chair has a precise, graphic presence. Photography courtesy of Marie Graunbol/Living Inside
A red room with a mirror and a lamp
A niche holds a Zande decorative knife from Congo-Kinshasa in the hallway, which is lit by two G&D ceramic fixtures: a custom pendant and an Eclipse sconce. Photography courtesy of Garcé & Dimofski.
A wooden chair with a red seat and a black cushion
The Iconic chair, commissioned from Korean American designer and frequent collaborator Minjae Kim, is handmade in Porto. Photography courtesy of Marie Graunbol/Living Inside.
A desk with a lamp and a painting on the wall
A vignette in the study includes a painting by Klara Kristalova, a Moon sconce, and a vintage Axel Einar Hjorth pine table, set against chestnut paneling. Photography courtesy of Marie Graunbol/Living Inside.
A kitchen with a red wall and a white tiled wall
Finished with an eye-catching painterly glaze, the kitchen’s wall tiles were developed in collaboration with Lígia Guedes, an artist-potter based in Porto. Photography courtesy of Marie Graunbol/Living Inside.
A pair of white slippers on a wooden table
Upholstered by Ateliers Jouffre in New York, Kim’s hand-carved Lola chair pairs wool bouclé with stained and lacquered Douglas fir. Photography courtesy of Marie Graunbol/Living Inside.
A dining room with a table and chairs
The dining room is outfitted with Studio Haos’s waxed aluminum table and vintage Pierre Chapo S24 chairs, as well as a Pedro Batista painting and Kim’s Canopy pendant and hand-carved Lacquered Chair II. Photography courtesy of Marie Graunbol/Living Inside.
A white vase with a blue top
Named for their daughter, G&D’s Zoë side table caps its biomorphic clay form with a colorfully glazed top. Photography courtesy COURTESY OF GARCÉ & DIMOFSKI;
A wooden table with a flower on top
Kim’s Iconic coffee table for G&D comprises a painted base with a ceramic plate inset on the sapele top. Photography courtesy COURTESY OF GARCÉ & DIMOFSKI
A bathroom with a toilet and a basket
In the main bedroom, Studio Haos’s bamboo pendant and a vintage Italian bench frame the door to the bathroom, where the ceramic tile–clad custom tub is backdropped by a Rosa Estremoz marble dado. Photography courtesy of Marie Graunbol/Living Inside.
A bedroom with a bed and a painting on the wall
The apartment’s original plasterwork ornaments the living room, while another Batista canvas presides over G&D’s chestnut-and-ceramic Mimi coffee table and Colin King’s handwoven Taglio rug for Beni Rugs. Photography courtesy of Garcé & Dimofski.

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