I design spaces you don't want to l .
— Vadim Costas
Vadim Costas
I grew up on construction sites.
My father ran a building company in France, after carrying on a family tradition of lime production in Moldova. From the age of 12, I learned the craft through material itself: plumbing, electricity, carpentry, painting. Every trade, before my eyes and in my hands.
I sometimes looked elsewhere — jewellery, textiles, hospitality, international trade — before returning to what had shaped me. Drawing on this technical expertise and knowledge of materials, I joined a school-agency on the French Riviera, working alongside practising architects. Today, as an interior architect and scenographer, I lead the COVAA studio from Paris and work on residences in France and abroad.
20 years of craft at 32: that is what those childhood construction sites gave me.
Listen before drawing
A project always begins with conversations. Understanding how you live, what the place evokes for you, what truly matters to you. It is this material that then makes the design right.
Architecture shapes the way we inhabit a space every day. My work consists of harmonizing the technical demands of a project with a coherent overall vision — from the site plan down to the door handles.
Detail changes everything
The choice of materials, the layout of a joint, the depth of a recess: it is these subtle decisions that ensure a project stands the test of time. We work with craftsmen we have known for many years and who are passionate about quality.
Inherit without copying
Many of the projects we work on already have a story: a family chalet, a Haussmann apartment, a village house. To modernize is to know where to extend that heritage and where to break with it.
It is in that tension that you find a design specific to the place — one that does not look like any other project in the studio.
Every project starts with a conversation
Let's talk. A thirty-minute call is usually enough to know whether we are the right studio for you.