Hasta La Ideas

Swiss architecture studio Madeleine Architectes has converted an old pigsty and clad it in lime and hemp to create the base of this house and office in Chavronay.

Named The Recipe, the home sits between a farm and a henhouse on a rural site close to the French border and is designed as a place of retirement for the parents of a large family.

Madeleine Architectes coated the pigsty’s existing brick shell in a layer of insulating lime and hemp, before topping it with a metal-clad upper level.

The upper level directly connects to the adjacent farm via a small wooden bridge.

“Crafted by the marriage of the mineral [lime] and the vegetal [hemp], an insulating layer is directly applied to the existing facade, like an ointment caring for a wound,” explained the studio.

“A participatory workshop brought together the craftsman, the client, and the architect around the shaping of this new skin, which is expressed as an honest and raw coating,” it continued.

The Recipe’s ground floor contains an office, while the first floor has an apartment. On the second floor is a communal dining room for both the residents and the surrounding farm.

New openings in the base of the building are fitted with small, black-shuttered windows for the bedroom, while on the upper level, full-height windows sheltered by the roof’s overhang provide the dining area views of the landscape.

“An office occupies the ground floor, while a parental refuge takes over the upper floor, an elevation whose open space is related to two opposite orientations which are equally rich in their context,” said Madeleine Architectes.

“The picturesque orchard to the east responds to the twilight of the sun setting over the barn roofs to the west,” it continued.

The Recipe’s interiors are defined by pale wooden panelling that lines the walls and floors. The panels also feature on the upper floor’s ceiling, teamed with exposed wooden trusses.

They are contrasted by small pops of bright colour, including a red built-in wardrobe in the bedroom and brightly coloured lighting cables supporting exposed bulbs in the dining area.

Madeleine Architectes was founded in Vevey in 2017 and is currently led by Maxence Derlet and Antoine Béguin.

Other projects involving pigsty conversions on Dezeen include Nieby Crofters Cottage by Jan Henrik Jansen and Marshall Blecher and a Portuguese holiday home by José Almeida.

The photography is by Séverin Malaud.

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