French architect Noel Dominguez has added a timber-clad residence with an angular penthouse to the former garden of a townhouse on the outskirts of Paris (+ slideshow).
Named Wooden House in Paris, the compact three-storey residence is clad with timber on its two lower storeys, while its glazed top floor is a wedge-shaped penthouse set back from the parapet.
Paris-based Noel Dominguez describes the building as “a periscope” mounted on “a wooden cube”. Its shape was designed to maintain privacy from surrounding buildings, but also ensure it doesn’t restrict the views from any neighbouring windows.
The two-storey base is a timber construction, with deeply recessed windows concentrated onto two elevations, while the upper section was conceived as “a mass of metal and glass” that “contorts and twists to avoid side views,” said the architect.
A large open-plan living room and kitchen occupies the entire ground floor and features exposed ceiling beams and recessed shelving units.
A spiral staircase leads up to a bedroom and bathroom on the middle floor, while the angular penthouse holds the master bedroom.
Due to the restricted nature of the site, construction become a challenge for the design team. Access was through a 1.4-metre-wide passage, meaning that timber had to be lifted into the site with a hand-powered pulley system.
In response to this, the architect built a digital model of the structure, giving each timber component a unique reference number for ease of construction. This enabled the house to be constructed in just three weeks.
Photography is by Fred Toulet, apart from where otherwise stated.
Read on for more text from the architects:
Wooden House in Paris
In the heterogeneous urban fabric of this part of the 20th district of Paris we are asked for a house. At the bottom of what was, before the breakup of the family and the sale of the house on the street, the garden, the client starts a new life.
To make the best use of the qualities of the plot of land allocated, the house is divided into two entities.
The wooden cube – a cube of wood is placed back-to-back against the terraced houses in the site. Four of its faces are open, according to the opportunity for views and illumination offered by the plot of land and the terraced housing.
The periscope – positioned on the wooden cube, a mass of metal and glass contorts and twists to avoid side views while making visual framing and lights of the project.
Ship in a bottle… Over the 18 metres that separate the narrow street from the construction platform site we circulate across passages 1.4m wide, we encounter a porch 2.5m high with a tree across it. The house on the street is inhabited, its garden opens itself on our plot. The project thus looks like a model ship in a bottle.
We choose a technique where small units of wood are assembled on site and placed by hand or pulley, without machinery (no crane !). The entire structure is modelled in 3D, each piece arrives on site with a reference and is part of a very precise mounting process. In order to limit damage to the environment (broadly defined), this technique allows the mounting of the house in three weeks and then the adorning of an insulating wool protection.
Architect: Noel Dominguez Team: Léo Pollard, Zoé Salvaire Structural engineering (foundation): N. Perifan Structural engineering (wood): Rialland TCE: LMP Framing wood, insulation and siding: LS Charpentes Aluminium joinery: FHA Painter: ECRIN Locksmith: La Boite de Fer Carpentry: Francis Bonnet ébénisterie Cost without tax/M²: €2850
A 100-year-old house in Paris has been renovated and extended by local studio CUT Architectures to frame a garden facing the morning sun and create a shaded terrace overlooking a nearby park (+ slideshow).
CUT Architectures refurbished the existing House in Meudon, which is home to a family of three. The building was constructed by the client’s grandfather and was only 42 square metres in size, so a timber extension was added to create extra room.
“We wanted to keep the sentimentality and feel of the existing house in the new extension,” architect Yann Martin told Dezeen. “It was very much a working house, with rabbits in the garden and wood for the chimney.”
The new extension doubles the size of the building and provides extra space for the parents to work separately from their teenage child.
The architects sourced native red cedar and used it to wrap both the existing structure and extension. They then constructed a south-facing timber terrace at the front.
“We liked the idea that the established house was wooden framed and wanted the new extension to be constructed from steel and wood, with the trees and view surrounding it,” Martin explained. “The use of timber helps to create a continuous surface across the build.”
Raised one metre above the ground to match the original property, the extension contains a large living room with bare white walls that contrast with the black-framed windows.
“It was difficult to build on the soil that was marked from years of clay and chalk digging in the undergrowth, so when we built the new extension, we provided a concrete base that gave the house a strong footprint and two separate gardens,” Martin said.
The terrace sits just in front and features a slatted roof to shade it from the sun, creating a pattern of shadows that filters through the facade.
A master bedroom and bathroom are tucked away at the rear, leading out to a sheltered garden where the owners can enjoy the morning sunrise over breakfast.
In the original structure, a bedroom and bathroom offer separate living spaces for the youngest member of the family.
Here’s some more text from the architects:
House in Meudon, France
The project is the extension and refurbishment of a very small detached house in Meudon, one of the nearest suburbs of western Paris. The location is exceptional; the plot is on the hill offering fantastic views and facing a park. The existing house was in a very bad condition but the owners had a sentimental attachment to it and didn’t want to tear it down.
The extension is twice the size of the existing house including a 20m² terrace. The extension is a wooden structure with a zinc roof almost invisible from the garden. Both the extension and the existing house are wrapped with vertical timber giving a continuous surface to the two volumes.
The living space and the terrace are lifted 1.2m above the garden level to match the existing house ground floor level and turning the terrace into a promontory for the views. The bedroom and bathroom space is on the natural ground level on the back of the plot. The articulation of the extension creates two gardens for the house: the one in the back for the morning sun and the one in front, facing the park and south-west from the terrace.
Paris studio Atelier Zündel Cristea has added a glass-walled extension that projects from the rear of this hundred-year-old house in the Vincennes suburb (+ slideshow).
Atelier Zündel Cristea was asked to reorder and optimise the interior of the early-twentieth-century property and began the renovation by removing existing annexes and interior walls that were reducing the usable living space.
“The distribution of spaces was very awkward, and any rapport between the house and the garden was nonexistent,” said the architects, who claimed that the original layout had restricted the potential 120 square metres of useable floor space to just 90 square metres.
Adding the extension and opening up new spaces including the attic and basement increased the home’s total occupied area to 220 square metres.
Annexed rooms at the rear of the house were replaced with the glass-walled addition that projects out towards the garden and incorporates full-height doors that can be slid open to connect the open-plan living area with the outdoors.
A roof terrace on top of the new extension can be accessed through doors from the master bedroom and incorporates two skylights that provide additional daylight to the dining room and kitchen.
The en suite bathroom of the master bedroom also opens onto the roof terrace so the occupants can look out at the garden from the bathtub.
A corridor leads from the front door past the living room and staircase to the dining area, with its glazed doors providing views of the trees in the garden from the entry.
A staircase connecting the entrance corridor on the ground floor with bedrooms on the first and second floors features curving walls and banisters, and is naturally lit by dormer windows at the top of the house.
The wood-panelled living area at the front of the house features a corner sofa and a fireplace built into the fitted cabinetry that continues along one wall into the kitchen.
Stairs leading from the living area to the garden continue down to a basement that houses an office with a window squeezed in under the extension.
A geothermal heat pump was installed in the basement at the front of the house to extract warmth from the ground for heating, while a double air flow ventilation system helps control air circulation and provides additional energy savings.
The house’s dilapidated front facade was updated and painted white, with additions including a second dormer window, new ironwork on the windows and a canopy above the door completing the new look.
The object of our renovation work is a house located in Vincennes, within the radius which surrounds the Château de Vincennes, a radius monitored by architects of historical monuments.
Before the renovation
The building seems to have remained largely in its original state since the beginning of the 20th century, and has not been renovated at all for at least thirty years. The distribution of spaces was very awkward, and any rapport between the house and the garden was nonexistent. In regards to an energy plan there was no insulation (neither within the walls nor within the attic spaces), and only single, non-waterproofed windows. The means of heating the house being individual gas burners. Almost a caricature.
In brief, the project consisted of: – the demolition of annexes damaged beyond repair – the completion in their place of an RDC extension around the preserved area of the house, which will open entirely upon the garden by means of a large bay window – the general overhaul of the house with restoration of the cellar and attic spaces
If the successful execution of a high-efficiency project, one that sought low emission levels, was in clear evidence of being pursued, we never forgot the primary aim of an architect that is to conceive of a beautiful structure with quality spaces in which people feel good. There is also the fact that a project seeking high-efficiency is not something readily apparent, that all the elements contributing to such efficiency are almost invisible, yet remain perceptible.
According to set buying and selling property regulations the house originally consisted of an inhabitable 120m², but in fact only 90m² were liveable. After the completion of work, thanks to attic spaces, a semi-recessed basement, and an extension, there will be approximately 220m² in which to live.
The heating is geothermal, with the installation of a heat pump. Interior comfort is ensured by double air flow ventilation. On the roof we envisioned solar panels as a means to produce clean, hot water.
Built: 2010 Client: private Architects: AZC Consultants: Choulet Construction cost: 0.3 M€ (ex VAT) Gross area: 220 m² Mission: Conception + construction Project: House
Toulouse architects BAST have renovated a derelict house in the French city by adding a corrugated steel extension that contrasts with the existing masonry (+ slideshow).
BAST responded to planning regulations outlawing the demolition of the existing house by designing a vertical extension that will give its inhabitants an additional storey once the interior refurbishment is completed.
The metal-clad addition replaces the building’s damaged roof and sits on top of existing limewashed stone and brick walls, which echo the construction of other buildings on the street.
“We wanted to create a strong contrast between the part retained and the new part – to contrast massiveness of masonry against the abstract extension,” architect Laurent Didier told Dezeen.
The angular structure features an offset gable and is punctuated by small windows on the south and west sides. The use of the strong but lightweight corrugated material reduces stresses on the lower storey.
“The extension allows the metal to not overload the existing foundations and walls,” said Didier, adding that the weight of the new structure is equivalent to that of the old roof.
A row of roof lights along the north-facing surface brings a soft and consistent natural light into the upper floor of the building.
The ground floor will contain an open plan living room and kitchen, with a separate area housing a bedroom, bathroom and storage space.
A new framework constructed inside the existing walls will support a first floor containing two bedrooms, a bathroom and a mezzanine office.
Black-painted timber contrasts with clean white window frames on the walls of this cube-shaped weekend home in Normandy, France, by Paris studio Beckmann-N’Thépé Architectes (+ slideshow).
Located on a quiet countryside plot in Bellavilliers, Beckmann-N’Thépé‘s House in Normandy is surrounded by little but woodland and fields.
The architects designed the house as a “minimalist object”, with a simple geometric shape and only one pronounced opening on each side.
Horizontal timber panels clad each wall and are painted black, giving the facade the appearance of charcoal.
“A line diagram cube with a 50 square-metre base on the ground, [the house’s] black-tinted wooden wall panelling responds to the woodland environment,” said the architects.
Small square windows puncture three elevations, while the fourth has glazed doors that lead out to a small terrace.
There’s also a fifth opening – a front door that is camouflaged within the cladding but revealed by a simple canopy.
A combined living room, dining area and kitchen takes up one half of the ground floor and features a double-height ceiling.
One bedroom is tucked away behind, alongside the bathroom, and a second occupies a mezzanine floor above.
The house was completed in 2009 and functions as the holiday home for a family of four.
Photography is by Stephan Lucas.
Read on for more information from Agence Beckmann-N’Thépé:
House in Normandy Bellavilliers, France
The house is located in the Normandy Bocage, surrounded by hedgerows and looking out over Bellême Forest. Set on the first third of a plot of land 150 m long, it stands in an isolated residential area in the Perche countryside.
A minimalist object, a line diagram cube with 50 m2 base on the ground, its black tinted wooden wall panelling responds to the woodland environment. With just one opening on each side judiciously oriented and highlighted with white, the front is made up of a wooden frame lined with high performance thermal insulation.
The double height in the living-room, also lit through a large bay window opening onto the south side, tends to expand the space.
The strict comfort needed is provided – a living space comprising a living-room with fireplace, open-plan kitchen, bathroom and cupboard space; and a night-time area with two bedrooms, one treated as a large open loft space, and a bathroom.
A few trees decorate the driveway and create a filter between the house and the lane outside.
The dormant partners’ requirement, the desired originality in the response, and the €120,000 budget together defined this simple volume, combining a good floor surface area to frontage ratio. The qualitative approach to the project in terms of materials and energy performance was the key here.
Program: Secondary residence for 4 people Architects: Agence Beckmann-N’Thépé (Paris) Client: Private Area: 80 m2 net floor area Cost: EUR 120 000 excl. VAT
Ground floor plan
Project manager: Nicolas Gaudard Architect: Laura Giovannetti Assistant architects: Mathilde Billet, Arthur Billaut, Thimothée Kazmierczak
A layer of grasses, herbs and flowers blankets the roof of this hump-shaped house near Reims, France, by architect Patrick Nadeau (+ slideshow).
Named La Maison-vague, which translates as Wave House, Patrick Nadeau‘s project is one 63 experimental houses being built in the commune of Sillery, near Reims, and was designed with an arching profile to resemble the shape of a mound or hill.
Plants wrap around the east and west facades, primarily to provide thermal insulation but also to allow the house to fit in with its rural surroundings.
“The traditional relationship between house and garden is changed, disturbed even; the project encompasses both in the same construction,” said Nadeau.
The architect worked alongside Pierre Georgel of landscape design firm Ecovégétal to design a planting scheme that encompasses herbs such as thyme and lavender alongside sedums, grasses and various other perennials.
“The plants were selected for their aesthetic qualities and their ability to adapt to the environment,” he said. ” The technical challenge lay primarily in the steep slope that required the development of innovative systems for the maintenance of land and water retention.”
An automatic watering system is integrated into the structure but is only intended for use during severe drought conditions.
Timber was used for the entire structure of the house. An arching wooden frame creates the curved profile, while a raised deck lifts the building off the ground and creates an outdoor seating area.
The north and south elevations are clad with transparent polycarbonate, which screens a mixture of clear glass windows and opaque timber panels.
The front entrance leads directly into an L-shaped living and dining space that occupies most of the ground floor of the house. A kitchen and bathroom are tucked into one corner, while a spiral staircase leads up to a pair of bedrooms on a mezzanine floor above.
Here’s a project description from Patrick Nadeau:
La Maison-vague / Patrick Nadeau
The project context is based on experimentation, and initiated by the public housing council of Reims (HLM – l’Effort Rémois) – in a subdivision of 63 lots with heavy economic constraints.
La Maison-vague uses vegetation for its architectural and environmental qualities, particularly in terms of thermal insulation. A fully vegetated shell protects the interior from summer heat and winter cold. The basic form is to encapsulate within a single mat of vegetation that undulates and floats above the ground, at sitting height (the rim surrounding the wooden shelf is kind of a big bench). The traditional relationship between house and garden is changed, disturbed even, the project encompasses both in the same construction.
Inside, the volumes are also very simple. The ground floor, living room, kitchen and multimedia space can be opened by sliding walls. Upstairs, two bedrooms are separated by a bathroom, which is accessed by a mezzanine.
Particular attention is paid to interior and exterior relationships. The terrace at the back of the house extends to the areas of the ground floor, for example, to dry in the sun after bathing.
Upstairs shower space is enclosed by a bay window opening onto a panorama of nature. A sectional view that shows the inner and outer volumes does not exactly follow the same form. The inner space is drawn, at the top, by a semicylindrical shell and, on the ground floor by large cabinets restoring vertical walls, which includes a wardrobe, library, media storage and kitchen furniture.
The house is built entirely of wood (structure, hull and facades gears). Only the foundation is concrete. The thermal performance is ensured by the north-south orientation, the vegetation of the hull and double wall facades. The outer walls are made of polycarbonate and the inner walls of glass and wood. A small wood stove in the living room provides heating for the entire space.
The vegetation has been designed with Pierre Georgel (Ecovégétal). The house is covered with soil that mimics that of a natural slope. The technical challenge lay primarily in the steep slope that required the development of innovative systems for the maintenance of land and water retention.
The plants were selected for their aesthetic qualities and their ability to adapt to the environment (resistance over time and minimal maintenance). It is a mix of sedums, grasses, thyme, lavender and other perennials and small aromatic herbs that are distributed according to the inclination of the hull. An automatic watering system is provided but it is only reserved for periods of very severe drought.
The house is alive, changing its appearance, colour and odour with the seasons. New plants can be brought by the wind, insects or birds and gives the building a certain character or even a fallow ground-wave, hence the name La Maison-vague, which could equally and poetically signify an ocean wave or an open field (terrain vague).
Cross section
Surface area: 110 m2 Place of construction: the commune of Sillery near Reims
Long section
Client: Effort Rémois Project management: Patrick Nadeau Technical Consultant: AD & Services Vegetation (experimental): Ecovégétal
French studio Perraudin Architecture has constructed a family house out of solid stone, claiming the material is “cheaper and faster” to build with than concrete.
Architect Marco Lammers said limestone had been chosen for economic reasons. “Stone itself is not an expensive resource,” he said. “Its manufacturing is. Therefore, the greater its mass, the lower its price and the greater its qualities.”
The house is located in Croix Rousse in Lyon – a dense former silk-weaving district – and is positioned in a small backland plot behind an art gallery.
Perraudin Architecture designed the building to match the typical local architecture, which features solid stone walls and windows large enough to fit silk looms through.
“Massive stone – when used with intelligence – allows to build cheaper and faster than ‘classical’ construction methods like […] concrete,” the architects claim.
Lammers told Dezeen that using stone for load-bearing construction is far more efficient than applying it as a cladding material and creates energy-efficient buildings without high price tags.
“When used constructively in its raw massive form, stone is load-bearing, has great qualities of thermal mass, absorbs and releases surplus humidity, does not degrade and thus literally makes timeless architecture,” he said.
“Arguably, the least intelligent use of stone thinkable is to cut it in thin slices and to hang it decoratively on structural walls,” he added.
The two-storey residence has an L-shaped plan that wraps around a small garden and swimming pool. Both floors feature floor-to-ceiling windows, and the stone walls are left exposed on the inside as well as the outside.
Ground floor spaces are arranged in a sequence where large family rooms are broken up by utility areas such as bathrooms and closets. These smaller spaces sit within compact stone volumes that support the flat roof overhead.
The architect added: “As stone is a subtractive rather than additive material, the domestic landscape architecture has a vocabulary of rifts, carvings, cracks and recesses.”
Here’s more information from Perraudin Architecture:
Massive stone house, Lyon – Croix Rousse, France
This single family house finds itself in the hearth of Croix-Rousse, one of the densest neighbourhoods of Europe. The quarter is heavily marked by its thousands of former home-workshops of the “canuts” – the silk weavers of the 19th century Lyonnais silk manufacturing.
An urban tissue of high, massive stone buildings with large window openings carrying heavy oak floor structures that allow for the high open spaces needed for the Jacquard looms that were used for weaving the silk tissue.
Axonometric diagram
Located in a hearth of a housing block at the back of the art gallery it extends, the possibilities to build are strictly limited by complex urban regulations. Therefore, the envelope of the house follows exactly the authorised maximum volume, with its spaces ‘carved out’ of this given envelope.
Exploded axonometric diagram
Within this rigid shell, the spaces are positioned one after the other forming a continuous scenic route. Due to the limited depth of the maximum envelope, the layout is organised as alternating service and served spaces, with the service-spaces (bathroom, storage, stairs, toilets…) forming massive blocks of stone that support the roof. With its reinforced contrast between mass and emptiness, between lightness and darkness, with its pierced and recessing mass, the playful and liberated inner world contrasts strongly with the outer world blocked in regulation.
Axonometric diagram of stone structure
Being closer to physical geography than to architecture, the service blocks arrange themselves in a route connecting and separating one living space from another. As stone is a subtractive rather than additive material, the “domestic landscape architecture” has a vocabulary of rifts, carvings, cracks and recesses.
Isometric detail
The service blocks define by contrast the living voids, orienting them towards the small garden they surround. The freshness generated by the basin completes this architectural geography.
Ground floor plan
Structurally, all floors are supported by the service blocks, with each block uniquely built up out of massive – structural – stone. The large blocks of dimension stone making up its masonry have been sculpted and assembled block by block after being cut precisely in the quarry. Delivered element by element, they were quickly mounted as if it were blocks in a toy building game.
First floor plan
About Perraudin Architecte and the use of massive stone as primary construction material
Perraudin Architecture is an office with a long history in forefront sustainable architecture – with as most notable example the Akademie Mont Cenis (Herne, Germany, 1999, awarded with the Holzbaupreis and the European Solar Prize, Prize for Solar Building and of the first large energy-neutral buildings).
Since 1998 the office rediscovered massive, structural stone as contemporary building material, starting to use a standardised module of large blocks of 2,00 x 1,00 x 0,50 meter of massive stone – or half of the unit size of stone as extracted directly from a quarry – as primary (structural) building material. Since, the office has proved the potential of massive stone as an elegant, sustainable, economical, and widely available local material in numerous of its buildings.
Most notable is the construction of 20 units of social housing in Cornebarrieu (project nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture Mies van der Rohe Award 2013, the Equerre d’Argent 2011, and winner of the Prix Développement Durable – Concours d’architecture Pierre Naturelle 2011). It proves massive stone – when used with intelligence – allows to build cheaper and faster than ‘classical’ construction methods like the use of armed concrete, all the while using very limited energy to extract and place (dry construction!) and having great tectonic and tactile qualities.
As each building we had built so far was based on the rather strict geometric base, this massive stone house in Lyon was the first project to allow us to demonstrate the extreme flexibility of stone, exploiting to the maximum its plastic qualities.
This “bioclimatic” house on the edge of Lyon in France features a timber frame, cladding of larch and composite timber, and a planted roof (+ slideshow).
Lyon architects Tectoniques introduced a range of measures to maximise the environmental and thermal performance of the house -called Villa B – along a north-south axis, with plenty of glazing on the south facade helping with solar gain.
The house is built using dry construction methods and features a prefabricated modular timber frame built on a concrete slab with larch cladding covering the exterior.
Floor-to-ceiling windows on opposite facades provide uninterrupted views through the ground floor of the house and incorporate the doors that lead to patios on either side.
“Consistency is created between the building and the external spaces, which enhance each other,” said the architects. “Thus the living area becomes larger than the space delimited by the walls.”
Adjoining the building’s west facade is a garage covered in black composite timber panels that extends to create a canopy above the entrance to the main living space. Adjustable shutters function as a brise soleil to regulate the amount of sunlight reaching the interior during the warmer months.
An island in the centre of the open-plan ground floor houses utilities including kitchen appliances and units, a bathroom and access to the basement. Built-in storage covers the full length of this room, freeing up the rest of the floor space.
Wood is used throughout the interior, with furniture and storage constructed from pale wood panels. The floors are made from poured concrete and white plasterboard walls keep the spaces bright.
Four bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs are organised around a central circulation space at the top of the stairs.
For architects, designing a house is an adventure, but reality is often not as easy as foreseen. The site is complicated, the neighbours are unhappy, the unforeseen factors are really not foreseen, construction work is not as fast as planned, the ecological goals are difficult to reach, and the contractors are not as qualified as specified, and so on – the list is long. In this situation, the architect will be the arbitrator and the ground-breaker. In the end, the construction seems simple and natural.
The story of the Villa B. follows the classic scenario of construction on a bare site, at the edge of a city, in the middle of market gardens, on a strip of land that is well-oriented.
Averse to the stereotypes of the private housing development on the edge of which it is located, and inspired by the image of F.L. Wright’s Usonian Houses and Case Study Houses, the designers make use of the site’s potential to apply the basic principles of the bioclimatic approach. The house quickly takes the shape of a compact whole that presents a simple timber cube very open to the surrounding landscape. As always, Tectoniques avoided the temptation of designing this scheme with a predetermined form to match a desired image, but instead asserted a principle of “no design”.
The bioclimatic approach, a pure attitude to architecture
Benefiting from a long experience of dry construction and timber frame construction, and well-versed in environmental questions for more than twenty years, the firm chooses to design with a bioclimatic approach. It experiments with several options and technical solutions with which it builds a strategy.
Looking into different options for construction and thermal aspects, the firm investigates different technical possibilities for insulation, heating and air handling, from which it chooses a consistent solution that is appropriate for the family’s ways of life and their ability to adapt to induced behaviour.
Priority is given to a house that serves the users, the idea that they have of it, how they plan to live in it and how to make the site their own. This is the basis of the architect’s work: then the technology follows.
The scheme takes the form of a compact house, well placed in the middle of its site, with a high-performance envelope. Oriented north-south and very open on the south side to benefit from solar gain, the house divided space in two gardens with terraces with very differents and complementary uses and atmospheres.
The plan: through views and transparency, intermediate and multipurpose spaces
The plan is efficient, almost square, measuring 10 x 11m. Along the west of the ground floor is a garage finished in black pannels timber composite, extended by a canopy. Free and open, it is organised around a central core that contains the services: cellar, networks, shower/bath room, and kitchen. All the rooms form a ring around this hub. Uninterrupted through views and continual contact with nature are maintained by using sliding partitions and large glazed areas facing each other.
A strip of ancillary and storage areas runs along the full height of the west wall. The overall scheme creates a multipurpose space, open onto the south and north gardens and the patios. Consistency is created between the building and the external spaces, which enhance each other. Thus the living area becomes larger than the space delimited by the walls.
The house faces due south. Largely glazed, it benefits from solar gain, while being protected by brise-soleil adjustable louver sun breaks to control stronger sunshine in the summer, spring and autumn. Open onto the south and east, its upper floor is closed on the north, and the west side only has small openings for the showers and bathrooms.
Since the local climate is strongly contrasted, with peaks of heat and cold, this plan layout allows maximum occupation of the patios according to the seasons, sheltered from the wind. In the long term, a variety of intermediate and peripheral elements may enhance the existing and vary the spaces, according to the weather and the seasons, such as arbours, canopies, pergolas, etc.
On the upper floor, the system is reversed: the layout organisation starts from the core and opens onto the bedrooms. Following the principle of separation of daytime and night- time areas, the upper floor is occupied by four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The bedrooms face south and east, while the bathrooms open to the west.
In addition to the clearly-identified living areas, the house has intermediate and multipurpose spaces. This is the case on the ground floor, which, with its sliding partitions, can have several layouts; also, some rooms that are not set aside for any specific purpose can be reconfigured according to the time of day e.g. study-laundry-computer room or guest bedroom-study-music room. This adaptability is a response to the need to manage both privacy and communal life within the family home.
Simple structure
The construction is simple. It is a timber- framed house, erected on a concrete slab, with a concrete topping laid on the upper floor. The structure is a prefabricated modular system. The roof insulation consists of 40 cm thick expanded cellulose wadding, and the wall insulation consists of mineral wool with woodwool on the outside, giving a total thickness of 32 cm. The woodwool slows down warming and cooling of the house by a lagging effect.
On the ground floor, three large triple-glazed panels – with a fixed part and a translating (tilting) opener – run along the elevation at ceiling height and frame the landscape. They avoid interrupting the views by door and window frames, and they draw the eyes towards the outside. On the upper floor, in the bedrooms, low tilt-and-turn windows have a fixed window-breast at bed height.
On the facades, perforated larch cladding is fixed to double 5 x 5 cm wall plates to further increase the ventilation effect. The cladding gradually greys naturally, without any treatment, with uniform silvery tinges. Inside, a lining of knot-free, light-coloured polar panels is used with great uniformity for built-in cupboards, furniture and storage elements. Elsewhere, white plasterboard adds to the soft, brightly-lit atmosphere of the house.
South facadeNorth facade
Thermal strategy
Space heating is mainly provided by floor heating on the ground floor and the upper floor. It is supplied by a condensation gas boiler and solar panels. The double- flow ventilation system is connected to a glycolated ground-air heat exchanger laid at a depth of between 2.00 and 2.50 m to the north of the house, which supplies air at a constant temperature of 12°C. When necessary, the exchanger can provide additional ventilation at night. During cold peaks, wood-burning stove covers additional heating needs, calculated for the overall volume and instantaneously, particularly
for the upper floor. Waxed concrete and floor heating provide very pleasant thermal comfort. The concrete topping, which is chosen despite the timber structure, provides uniformity of floors on the ground floor and upper floor, in bedrooms, showers and bath rooms. In addition, the roof is planted with a sedum [stonecrap] covering, and rainwater is collected in an underground tank.
All of these systems require some control to function as well as possible. This is a technical matter that needs a certain degree of mastery, which is acquired empirically and requires the occupants to take an interest in them and to change their habits.
Sliding back the glazed facade allows the upper storey to hang over the open living space of this house in Brittany by French firm Lode Architecture (+ slideshow).
Located on the banks of an estuary, the D House by Lode Architecture is split between the open ground floor and a series of smaller rooms on the upper floor.
The ground floor has a glazed facade with views down to the water and is centred around an open hearth on one side and a kitchen island on the other.
The wooden steps of the staircase fan out into a cube of shelving. “The main issue here was to find a machine capable of cutting such large pieces,” architect Arnaud Lacoste told Dezeen. “Then the assembling was a huge puzzle game.”
Upstairs is a series of smaller rooms with cork flooring and dark grey walls.
Two of the bedrooms have their own outdoor balconies screened off by a trellis of narrow chestnut planks.
The architects also extended the wooden trellises to wrap around the entire upper storey. “We used it as a rough material, keeping the natural shape of the wood. This rustic manner makes a strong contrast with the sophisticated glazed facade of the lower floor,” said Lacoste.
Beached on the estuary’s banks, where fresh waters meet rising tides, the D house cultivates contradictions. It can be either a shelter or a reception place, an intimate space or the place for partying. It is driven by opposite currents and its character varies depending on its occupants’ moods and natural cycles.
When discovering the house, the first thing we catch sight of is the overhanging section. Thanks to a retaining wall, a hollow space appears below. Life is organised here around the hearth, the stairs and a central cooking island.
All around you, panoramic views of the undergrowth and beyond the river are offered by the upstairs floor. Wells of light passing through the upstairs floor invite the sky into this blended landscape.
On the ground, the stone disappears, the windowed angles fade. We live inside the wood.
Upstairs, a succession of small spaces creates a completely different hushed atmosphere. We cross a series of adjoining rooms, lit through wooden trellises which filter the view and dim the light.
Above: site plan
From the bedrooms, you can access outside closed‐in spaces to get fresh air or sunbathe above the living‐room. Nature is all around and envelopes you.
Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image
The contrasting façades reflect the duality of these spaces. In very different ways they both adopt the same strategy of camouflage: the reflections of the leaves on the glazed surfaces, or the cladding made of untreated planks which imitate the surrounding nature and whose texture merges in the woody environment.
Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image
Sophistication and rusticity, abstraction and materiality, the architecture of the house plays with dialectical sets, just like a landscape drawing its strength from the confrontation of the elements.
Above: north elevation
Completion date: 2012 Area: Brittany, France
Above: south elevation
Dimensions: L 16.10m x l 9.20m x h 6.00m Living area: 250 m2
French architect Emmanuelle Weiss has added a contrasting dark brick extension to a red brick house outside Lille (+ slideshow).
Weiss wanted to create a contemporary extension, but also respect the traditional materials palette. “The chosen materials are an homage to the existing house, but stay in a modern urban context,” the architect explained.
Unlike the original building, which has a vernacular roof, the extension features an asymmetric roofline that slopes upwards at two opposite corners of the building to form a butterfly shape.
The two buildings barely touch, so only a single doorway connects to the existing hallway from a new open-plan living and dining room, while two patios slot into the spaces between.
A new staircase leads up to the first floor, where the irregular shape of the roof provides a faceted ceiling over the extra bedroom and dressing room.
There is no connection to the main house from these rooms, but a doorway leads out to a small terrace on the roof.
House D (Maison D) is an extension of a family home in the middle of an urban area on a parcel of land twice as wide as the existing house.
The house doubles the linear qualities of the existing house façade, thus unifining a roadside landscape that was deconstructed before. The extention also doubles the importance of the private family garden.
The House D extension welcomes all the important living functions, private income patio, kitchen and living room, the architect (Emmanuelle Weiss) chose to incorporate on the first level of the extention an equipped sleeping quarter, with bathroom and a well organised dressing room.
The result of this exercise frees up the existing house, wich has mainly become the children’s territory. Also now, the complementation of House D makes room to add a large office area in the existing house, addapted to the professional life of its inhabitants.
The volume, high levels, low levels: “zones” create a dialogue with the existing typical style house. All the volumes in House D translate into its roofline, bringing a richness to the space. Natural light embraces the volume, sometimes directly, sometimes reflected, it fills the complete project and living quarters.
House D is an answer to the existing devision of the main house. Its functional properties talk directly to the vertical circulations of the existing house, it opens up living space.
To link the old and new together, the architect chose to use a minimal contact between both architectures. The new differentiates itself on the outside by two little patios, only linking itself to the old on the interior where the new encroaches into the hallway.
The chosen materials are an homage to the existing house, but stay in a modern urban context. Dark bricks (reflecting back on a modern way to the dark old red bricks typical for this area) and aluminium detailing show subtle hints to thier surroundings.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
