Apartment in Marina Gate, Dubai Marina

The apartment borrows its frame from a Parisian flat, with panelled walls, a ceiling rose and a cornice, and then breaks the rules once. A band of oxblood red covers one wall panel from the skirting up, turns at the cornice and carries on across the ceiling. It marks the sitting area the way a rug does, only from above.

Everything else is quiet. The mouldings are painted the same warm grey as the walls. The sofa is a deep, rounded piece in moss-coloured chenille with cushions in fur and linen. A slim arc floor lamp ends in a brass ring that hovers over a black glass coffee table. Next to it stands a small bronze side table.

Sheer curtains fill the window wall and blur the towers of the Marina. An olive tree brings the only green.

In the bedroom a vanity unit is composed like a still life: a rounded shelf on one slim leg, a circular mirror set into a plaster arc, and a stack of offset drawers in grey and sand.