This narrow house in Tokyo by local studio Another Apartment has no windows or doors on its front to prevent neighbours from seeing inside.
The house for a family of three is squeezed onto a 58 square-metre plot in a residential neighbourhood of the city.
It is surrounded on three sides by other properties, so Tsuyoshi Kobayashi of Another Apartment positioned the building on the northern edge of the site, and located the entrance and windows on the south-facing sidewall.
“We adopted a plan to make maximum use of openings on the south face and the roof for natural illumination, ventilation and views,” explained Kobayashi.
A spiral staircase with cantilevered treads and a minimal handrail links the ground floor with both the upper storey and a basement level designated for use as a home theatre.
The entrance opens into the living room, which also contains the kitchen and features a full-height sliding window that can be opened out to a narrow patio.
“The living room on the first floor is located a little higher than the ground level and has an atmosphere like a broad veranda as a whole,” said the architect.
Upstairs is a single space that can be separated into two bedrooms using sliding partitions that disappear into the wall when not required.
On the south facade, a series of windows spans the full length of the room, while the opposite wall features built-in storage and includes a hidden sink.
Portuguese studio Tiago do Vale Arquitectos has renovated a townhouse in Braga that was built as a servants’ house in the late nineteenth century and modelled on the style of an Alpine chalet (+ slideshow).
Tiago do Vale Arquitectos overhauled all three storeys of the Three Cusps Chalet, which was originally built at a time when a number of migrants were returning to Portugal from Brazil and were commissioning grand houses influenced by trends from across Europe and South America.
Now transformed into a light and modern home and workplace for a couple, the old house forms part of a row of three properties that were built to house the servants of a nearby palace, combining typical Portuguese materials and proportions with Alpine forms and details.
“In general everything is original, or reconstructed as the original, which required the elimination of many unqualified more recent add-ons,” the architects told Dezeen.
A vivid shade of turquoise differentiates the building from its neighbours, while decorative eaves and stonework have been restored around the edges of the roof and windows.
“We used a combination between the colour palette of the nineteenth century – pastels were quite popular at that time and in this region – and a sensibility to harmonise it with the street at its present state,” said the architects.
Unnecessary partitions and extensions were removed from the interior, creating open-plan spaces that are defined by the position of a central staircase that had previously been boxed in.
At street level, a large split-level space with a white marble floor can function as either a shop or office. A large glass partition fronts the staircase on the left-hand side of the space, revealing the route up to the domestic spaces above.
This staircase narrows with each flight of stairs, intended to emphasise how the degree of privacy increases on the upper levels.
The first floor sits just above the ground level at the rear of the building, which created an opportunity for a small outdoor deck. A kitchen and dining area are just in front, while the living room is positioned opposite.
The final storey accommodates a large bedroom with simple furnishings, as well as a timber-lined dressing room that contrasts with the clean white aesthetic of the other rooms.
Here’s a project description from Tiago do Vale Architects:
The Three Cusps Chalet
Historical context
In the second half of the 19th century Portugal saw the return of a large number of emigrants from Brazil. While returning to their northern roots, specially in the Douro and Minho regions, they brought with them sizeable fortunes made in trade and industry, born of the economic boom and cultural melting pot of the 19th century Brazil. With them came a culture and cosmopolitanism that was quite unheard of in the Portugal of the eighteen-hundreds.
That combination of Brazilian capital and taste sprinkled the cities of northern Portugal with examples of rich, quality architecture, that was singular in its urban context and frequently informed by the best that was being done in both Europe and Brazil.
Built context
The “Three Cusps Chalet” is a clear example of the Brazilian influence over Portuguese architecture during the 19th century, though it’s also a singular case in this particular context.
Right as the Dom Frei Caetano Brandão Street was opened, a small palace was being built in the corner with the Cathedral’s square and thanks to large amounts of Brazilian money. It boasted high-ceilings, rich frescos, complex stonework, stucco reliefs and exotic timber carpentry. In deference to such noble spaces, the kitchen, laundry, larders and personnel quarters, which were usually hidden away in basements and attics, were now placed within one contiguous building, of spartan, common construction.
Built according to the devised model of an alpine chalet, so popular in 19th century Brazil (with narrow proportions, tall windows, pitched roofs and decorated eaves), the “Three Cusps Chalet” was that one building.
Due to the confluence of such particular circumstances it’s quite likely the only example of a common, spartan, 19th century building of Brazilian ancestry in Portugal.
Siting at the heart of both the Roman and medieval walls of Braga, a stone’s throw away from Braga’s Cathedral (one of the most historically significant of the Iberian Peninsula) this is a particularly sunny building with two fronts, one facing the street at west and another one, facing a delightful, qualified block interior plaza at east, enjoying natural light all day long.
At the time of our survey, its plan is organised by the staircase (brightened by a skylight), placed at the centre of the house and defining two spaces of equal size, east and west, on each of the floors.
The nature of each floor changes from public to private as we climb from the store at the street level to a living room (west) and kitchen (east) at the first floor, with the sleeping quarters on top.
Materials-wise, all of the stonework and the peripheral supportive walls are built with local yellow granite, while the floors and roof are executed with wooden beams with hardwood flooring.
Architectural project
Confronted by both its degrading state and degree of adulteration, and by the interest of its story and typology, the design team took as their mission the recovery the building’s identity, which had been lost in 120 years of small unqualified interventions. The intention was to clarify the building’s spaces and functions while simultaneously making it fit for today’s way of living.
The program asked for the cohabitation of a work studio and a home program. Given the reduced area of the building, the original strategy of hierarchising spaces by floor was followed. The degree of privacy grows as one climbs the staircase. The stairs also get narrower with each flight of steps, informing the changing nature of the spaces it connects.
A willingness to ensure the utmost transparency throughout the building, allowing light to cross it from front to front and from top to bottom, defined all of the organisational and partitioning strategies resulting in a solution related to a vertical loft.
The design team took advantage of a 1.5 m height difference between the street and the block’s interior plaza to place the working area on the ground level, turning it westward and relating it to the street. Meanwhile, the domestic program relates with the interior plaza and the morning light via a platform that solves the transition between kitchen and exterior. This allows for both spaces to immediately assert quite different personalities and light, even though they are separated by just two flights of stairs.
The staircase geometry, previously closed in 3 of its sides, efficiently filters the visual relations between both programs while still allowing for natural light to seep down from the upper levels and illuminate the working studio.
The second floor was kept for the social program of the house. Refusing the natural tendency for compartmentalising, the staircase was allowed to define the perimeters of the kitchen and living room, creating an open floor with natural light all day long. Light enters from the kitchen in the morning, from the staircase’s skylight and from the living room in the afternoon.
Sections
Climbing the last and narrow flights of stairs we reach the sleeping quarters where the protagonist is the roof, whose structure was kept apparent, though painted white. On the other side of the staircase, which is the organising element on every floor, there’s a clothing room, backed by a bathroom.
If the visual theme of the house is the white colour, methodically repeated on walls, ceilings, carpentry and marble, the clothing room is the surprise at the top of the path towards the private areas of the house. Both the floor and roof structure appear in their natural colours surrounded by closet doors constructed in the same material. It reads as a small wooden box, a counterpoint to the home’s white box and being itself counterpointed by the marble box of the bathroom.
Fitting with the strategy of maximising light and the explicitness of the spaces, the material and finish choices used in this project were intentionally limited. White colour was used for the walls, ceilings and carpentry due to its spacial qualities and lightness. Wood in its natural colour is used for the hardwood floors and clothing room due to its warmth and comfort. Portuguese white Estremoz marble, which covers the ground floor, countertops and on the bathrooms and laundry walls and floors, was chosen for its texture, reflectivity and colour.
Window and door details
All of the original wood window frames of the main façade were recovered, the roof was remade with the original Marseille tiles over a pine structure and the decorated eave restored to its original glory.
The hardwood floors were remade with southern yellow pine over the original structure and all the surfaces that required waterproofing covered with Portuguese Estremoz marble.
Ground floor window frames were remade in iron, as per the original, but redesigned in order to maximise natural illumination (as on the east façade).
Window and eaves details
Architecture: Tiago do Vale Architects, Portugal Location: Sé, Braga, Portugal Construction: Constantino & Costa Project year: 2012 Construction year: 2013 Site area: 60 m2 Construction area: 165 m2
This house situated in an old fishing village in Sweden features pale pine floors, high ceilings and a wood-burning stove inside a concrete block (+ slideshow).
Swedish studio Sandell Sandberg designed the house as part of the Wiklands Backe development, a cluster of 11 homes located in the coastal village of Kivik on the southern tip of Sweden.
The house centres around the cast iron stove, which sits in a large concrete block in the centre of the front room with its flue exposed by the full height of the building. “The high ceiling makes the interior rather unique despite its traditional shape,” said the architects.
An open-plan kitchen is located towards the rear of the space, furnished with white cabinets and a marble worktop.
On the first floor mezzanine, a lamp hangs from the apex of the pitched roof to illuminate a study area overlooking the front room.
The master bedroom is tucked away at the rear of the ground floor, while two more are located upstairs and feature angled skylights.
Turquoise tiles form a diagonal pattern across the walls and floor of the bathroom.
Sandell Sandberg has developed three standard house types for the Wiklands Backe development. With a floor area of 140 square metres, this is the smallest of the three designs and is being replicated for five other properties.
The exterior of the house is divided into two sections. The front of the building is clad with Danish hand-crafted brick whilst the back features black pine on the ground floor and a grey zinc roof.
“The reason why the buildings have been divided in this way is to break down the scale,” Wiklands Backe’s Theresa Digerfeldt-Månsson told Dezeen. “They should connect to the ‘style’ and tradition of the old fishing villages on the Skane east coast – villages that are characterised by a great variety of volumes and materials.”
All roofs are pitched at an angle of 45 degrees to comply with local planning regulations.
“The aim of the project has been to develop houses that connect to the tradition of the fishing village without copying it and to build houses that are perceived as attractive today as they will be within 100 years,” added Digerfeldt-Månsson.
A small garage is included with this property and sits alongside the house.
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
The concrete walls inside this house in Poland by Ultra Architects were formed against wooden boards, creating a grainy texture that inverts the surface of the timber-clad facade (+ slideshow).
Named Seaside House, the three-storey residence was designed by Poznań firm Ultra Architects for a site behind the sand dunes of a beach in north-west Poland. This meant that groundwater levels were particularly high, so the house had to be built with a heavy waterproof structure.
Architects Marcin Kościuch and Tomasz Osięgłowski chose a concrete framework that could be left exposed on walls and ceilings throughout the interior.
“The building’s structure was designed as a monolithic shell made of reinforced concrete,” they said. “This kind of construction secures safety, geometric stability and tightness. It also let us use a structural material as a natural finishing of interiors.”
The exterior walls are clad with the same kind of timber panels used as formwork for the in-situ concrete, allowing the two different materials to match one each other in texture.
“In effect we achieved a characteristic reversal – warm wood on the outside and rough concrete with imprints of a formwork inside a house,” said the architects.
The house was constructed on the exact footprint of a demolished older house to prevent disturbing the roots of any surrounding pine trees.
The volume of the building is made up of two rectilinear blocks that are offset from one another. These form the two main floors, while a third storey is buried below ground level.
Bedrooms are all positioned on the uppermost floor, including a master suite with its own living room, while living and dining areas occupy the middle floor and open out to a wooden deck. A swimming pool is located in the basement.
Read on for more information from Ultra Architects:
Seaside House
The very first task was to choose a structural material which would work in heavy natural conditions on a plot where the building had to stand.
For the sake of instability of the ground and high level of ground water, the shell of the building must be heavy and waterproof. It also must be firm and solid since we designed large windows to open the interior for a beautiful view of a seaside landscape.
The answer was simple – concrete. Choosing it, we wanted to make best use of its qualities. Our main idea was sincerity of material – concrete is true both in the way it is used and it looks. These two aspects are not separated from each other but they create a coherent wholeness.
The building’s structure was designed as a monolithic shell made of reinforced concrete. This kind of construction secures safety, geometric stability and tightness. It also let us use a structural material as a natural finishing of interiors. Concrete has become a leitmotif of the whole design, also determining aesthetic solutions in interiors. Grey colour and a rough texture of concrete are balanced with whiteness of some internal walls and bright, wooden floors.
Another important material we used in this design is wood. Exterior cladding of elevations is made of screw-in vertical boards (in analogy to the formwork for monolithic structure). In effect we achieved a characteristic reversal – warm wood on the outside and rough concrete with imprints of a formwork inside a house. The third material is a sheet metal. Window-frames and all other exterior metal elements were designed in graphite colour.
The house was built in a coastal town, on a plot located just behind dunes. It replaced an old building which was too small and architecturally unattractive. Pine trees grow all over the plot and we wanted to save them all. New cubical block was inserted in the place of a former building this way not to remove any of them.
All elevations of a building are almost identical (each follows the same pattern). Characteristic point of a house is an entrance area which offers two entry points located in both eastern corners of a building, in a part of a plot adjacent to the road. Along the south-west and north-west elevation there is a wooden terrace with a built-in barbecue stove.
Each storey of a building acts different function. The ground floor which was designed as an open space is intended for daily home activities. First floor serves leisure and entertainment functions. It is divided into two sections: the bigger one, with a view for a sea, it’s owners’ private zone.
It contains a small living room, bedroom, wardrobe and a bathroom. In the southern part of a floor there are situated three identical guest rooms with bathrooms. Basement accommodates storage and technical facilities as well as a swimming-pool.
Architects: Marcin Kościuch, Tomasz Osięgłowski / Ultra Architects Collaborators: Łukasz Piszczałka, Marta Perlik-Napierała Year: 2013 Area: 470 sqm
The entire facade of this house in the Japanese town of Ōiso by atelier HAKO architects is clad in fibre-reinforced cement boards and punctuated by a series of scattered windows (+ slideshow).
Photo by atelier HAKO architects
The grey boards are typically used as a standard roofing material in Japanese housing developments but were also applied by atelier HAKO architects to cover the exterior walls.
Designed for a family with two children on a site near the Sagami Bay coastline of the Pacific Ocean, the cement boards also perform a practical role as they are resistant to corrosion from the salty air.
An offset gable gives the roofline an asymmetrical appearance, which helps the building stand out among its more conventional neighbours.
“The house was placed on the north side of the site in order to protect the garden from seasonal wind from [the] north in winter,” said the architects, who incorporated small windows on the north facade and positioned larger windows on the south side of the building facing the garden.
The southern facade also incorporates large sliding windows that open onto a deck reminiscent of an “engawa”, a strip of wooden flooring found between the living space and external storm shutters of traditional Japanese houses.
“[The] internal area was designed with an emphasis on continuity with the garden,” explained the architects, who created an open plan living and dining area on the ground floor next to a kitchen with an aperture in the wall linking the two spaces.
A spiral staircase with a bottom tread that appears to hover above the ground connects the living room with a hallway on the upper floor where the bedrooms, bathroom and children’s play area are also located.
Photography is by Shinsuke Kera / Urban Arts, unless stated otherwise.
Here are some details about the project:
The site is located at the edge of dwelling area close to the sea that is facing the agricultural land spread to the north-east mountain side.
The house was placed on the north side of the site in order to protect the garden from seasonal wind from north in winter.
Internal area was designed with an emphasis on continuity with the garden. In the south elevation, wide window and shallow depth wood deck which is like japanese traditional ‘engawa’ were provided as connect elements of the internal area and the garden, whereas other elevation was designed defensive to outside.
Triangular roof was slightly rotated with respect to the axis of the outer wall, the elevations got asymmetric shapes that offer humorous feeling at glance.
Fiber-reinforced cement board to be used usually as roofing material of mass production house in Japan was used as the exterior wall finishing material resistant to salt damage, thus overall architecture got abstract appearance covered with the same material all.
Name: House in Ōiso Architect: Yukinobu Nanashima + Tomomi Sano / atelier HAKO architects Structural engineer: Shin’itsu Hiraoka / Hiraoka Structural Engineers Completion: March 2010 Location: Ōiso, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan Primary usage: private residence Structure: wooden construction, two stories above ground Site area: 155.31 m2 Building area: 44.86 m2 Total floor space: 89.72 m2
Oregon architects Works Partnership Architecture converted a warehouse in Portland into a home and studio by punching skylights through the preserved bowstring truss roof and inserting living quarters within timber-clad boxes (+ slideshow).
Bowstring Truss House is a conversion of a 5,000 square foot industrial building into a column-free home with a “pixellated” arrangement of timber-clad private spaces.
“The goal of the design was to maintain the vast trussed ceiling and the open floor plane, while inserting a standard residential program that the clients could live among,” Works Partnership Architecture explained.
“A strategy was adopted for inserting the program into the shell in a loose arrangement of programmed ‘boxes’,” the architects added. “In order to allow a sense of the ‘whole’, a pixellated subset of elements could create a broad spectrum of both public and private spaces while never competing with the recognisable order of the roof.”
A bowstring truss is a structural device commonly used in bridge-building and, less often, in industrial architecture. Used to span wide, column-free spaces, it consists of an arched beam (the bow) joined at each end by a straight beam (the string), with diagonal support beams joining the two.
Bowstring trusses were commonly used in the United States in the early part of the Twentieth Century, particularly for buildings such as car dealerships, auto repair shops and bowling alleys.
This particular example was was originally built as a warehouse and mechanic’s workshop. The conversion includes an internal courtyard that slots between two of the five original timber roof trusses.
The courtyard is glazed at the top to bring light into the interior and surrounded by timber walls at floor level, with glazed openings that frame views of its planted interior.
Knotted timber panelling covers some of the interior surfaces and contrasts with the minimal white walls found throughout the house.
Photography is by Joshua Jay Elliott.
Here’s some more information from the architects:
Bowstring Truss House Portland, Oregon
Works Partnership Architecture announced this month that the firm has completed the Bowstring Truss House, a private residence and studio was adapted from a 5000 sf former warehouse and auto repair shop. The space is clear spanned by a series of five bowstring trusses and exposed roof framing.
The goal of the design was to maintain the vast trussed ceiling and the open floor plane, while inserting a standard residential program that the clients could live among.
The design manages both scales simultaneously: a sense of the expanse of the entire structure as well as scaled discrete living areas—a new environment, a simplified terrain between earth and sky.
A strategy was adopted for inserting the program into the shell in a loose arrangement of programmed “boxes”. The five trusses provided more than enough meter for the space.
In order to allow a sense of the “whole”, a pixilated subset of elements could create a broad spectrum of both public and private spaces while never competing with the recognisable order of the roof. The functionality of the house flows lucidly. A free pattern of new skylights create a constellation of light and discrete pools of sun.
At the centre of the house, the groundscape and the roofscape align to form a central courtyard—a vitrine of nature, and a vessel to capture the elusive Pacific Northwest light.
Project: Bowstring Truss House Land/Built-up area: 5,000 sq ft Location: Portland, Oregon, USA Architect: Works Partnership Architecture Project team: Carrie Strickland, William Neburka, Megan Coyle, Jennifer Dzienis, Ian Campbell Contractor: Don Tankersley Construction
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.
This holiday home on the southern coast of Nova Scotia perches on a row of narrow concrete fins just metres from the Atlantic Ocean (+ slideshow).
Designed as a holiday home for a couple by Canadian studio MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, the property is situated close to a small fishing village on a plot where a meadow meets the rocky coastline.
The clients asked for a sanctuary where they could look out at the sun setting over the sea, and the architects responded by designing the building as a “landscape-viewing instrument, with its side opened to the Atlantic Ocean horizon, and its end a focusing aperture to the sunset.”
The architects raised the building off the ground “to allow any rogue waves which might crest the granite edge to pass under the house,” but left one corner open to the elements to create a terrace overlooking the sea.
The exterior is clad in corrugated galvanised aluminium to provide a robust shield against the prevailing weather and the underside of the raised structure is covered in the same marine-grade plywood used in local boat building.
A series of broad wooden stairs lead to a covered opening with doors on either side connecting the master bedroom with the rest of the house. Large sliding barn doors can be closed to seal the building during storms.
The main living space is located next to the terrace and features glass walls that frame views of the ocean, while clerestory windows above the beds allow the occupants to look up at the sky and a low window provides views from the bathtub.
Interior finishes are kept deliberately minimal to focus attention on the views. “When seated in front of the warming hearth, the land between the house and the water’s edge disappears from view, and the plane of the polished grey concrete floor extends to the ever-changing surface of the ocean,” said the architects.
This home is dramatically sited along the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, on the southern coast of Nova Scotia, a landscape defined by massive pieces of exposed granite, and the drama of the open ocean. Running parallel to the rugged the shoreline, the house grips the edge fulfilling the owners desire to have as intimate of a connection to the ocean as possible.
Its cantilevered end reaches out over Sunset Rock, its namesake and the owners most loved place on their site. Many evenings were spent viewing the spectacular local sunsets from this location, long before the idea of placing a house here was conceived. As a result the house is an extension of the rock, creating a landscape-viewing instrument, with its side opened to the Atlantic Ocean horizon, and its end a focusing aperture to the sunset.
Program
Built as a vacation home for a professional couple who fell in love with the local people and pace of life of this small fishing village, it is a retreat from the pace of the major metropolis in which they work. A sanctuary just steps from the ocean, it is a place in which to read, reflect, and write, while living within the remarkable view.
On approach, the house appears as a long metal blade marking the transition from meadow to ocean, its monolithic form punctuated by a generous stair leading to the framed view of the ocean horizon provided by the covered entry deck. A series of barn doors allow for the metal skin to be completed, providing protection of the windows from any storms that may come. And as a further consideration to its environment, the house lightly touches the ground, resting on a series of concrete fins perpendicular to the shoreline, engineered to allow any rouge waves which might crest the granite edge to pass under the house. An asymmetrical bite out of the end of the form creates a sheltered viewing deck from which to enjoy the sunset, while above this an interior loft allows for inhabiting the steel structure, and provides a cocooning space in which to work with focused views along the shoreline.
The narrow floor plate provides excellent cross ventilation, while generous windows to the view invite the sun in to warm the thermal mass of the concrete floors. The main living area has walls of glass to the view, with no partitions above 8’, allowing for the full expression of the volumes sculptural nature. Body scaled bedboxes open upward without ceilings providing views to the ever-changing day and night sky through clearstory windows. The bathing room again responds to the theme of water, with a long, narrow low window for viewing the ocean waves while seated in the bathtub. The master suite is separated from the public spaces of the house by the covered deck allowing for retreat and privacy.
With its grey metal skin the house disappears within the blanket of fog which frequents the site. The durable and economical corrugated galvalume was chosen not only for its minimal beauty, but also to endure the environmental conditions of the houses proximity to the ocean. The underbelly of the house is protected by marine grade plywood, a material used extensively in the local boat building industry. The calm sculptural nature of the house, expressed both in its form and materials, are drawn from the vernacular and ethic of the local buildings used in the commercial fishery. Many of those involved in the building of the home were equally comfortable building a boat for lobster fishing as they are building a house.
The interior pallet is restrained, almost completely white except for the horizontal surfaces of concrete and granite, and the exposed steel structure. This allows the interior surfaces to be of minimal distraction and dissolve into the background as the power and immediacy of the ocean is invited in. When seated in front of the warming hearth, the land between the house and the water’s edge disappears from view, and the plane of the polished grey concrete floor extends to the ever-changing surface of the ocean.
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