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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.
Le studio de design Bonsoir Paris vient de concevoir la série d’installations Quoi de Neuf pour les Galeries Lafayette. Cette saison, sur le thème de la littérature, voici une imagerie basée sur le principe de la page blanche, avec 16 vitrines mettant chacune en avant un détail ou une caractéristique des produits.
White ceramic tiles create a brickwork pattern across the walls and roof of this Paris boutique designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates for Chinese lifestyle brand Shang Xia (+ slideshow).
Japanese firm Kengo Kuma and Associates previously designed the Beijing and Shanghai stores for Shang Xia. For the brand’s first retail space in Europe, the architects designed an interior covered in over 10,000 tiles that extends to a layered ceiling installation.
The studio chose rectangular tiles with a glossy surface to reflect light through the store, describing the material as having an edge “thin enough to pass through light”.
“We used the same material for tiles to hang from the ceiling and cover the space,” explained the studio. “Taking advantage of this glazed white surface that softly mirrors its environments, we set up a place like a cloud brimming with light.”
The tiles also form a backdrop for the shopfront display windows, creating a screen that alternates between solid and void.
Located on a corner plot close to Boulevard Saint-Germain, the oval-shaped boutique showcases a range of furniture, homeware, accessories and clothing.
A tiled partition divides the store and is punctured by rectangular recesses, creating display spaces for jewellery. Tabletops and boxy stools are positioned in front, where customers can take a seat while trying on jewellery.
Glass-topped storage cases present a range of accessories, while more recessed shelving on the perimeter walls are filled with homeware items.
Scarves and shawls are tied to silver railings near the entrance and racks of clothing are set into the outer tiled walls, along with a selection of furniture. Polished wooden floors feature throughout.
The design has a similar aesthetic to Shang Xia’s two stores in China. While the Beijing store contains a lattice of extruded aluminium sections, the Shanghai boutique features a faceted white interior.
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Bold orange windows punctuate the wooden facades of this angular apartment block that French studio Vous Êtes Ici Architectes has slotted between the existing buildings of a south Paris neighbourhood (+ movie).
The six-storey building was designed by Vous Êtes Ici Architectes to provide 11 social housing units beside a school in the 5th Arrondissement of the French capital, on a site previously occupied by a low-rise warehouse.
Rather than building across the entire site, the architects developed an irregularly shaped block that follows the rhythms of the surrounding architecture and frames a pair of gardens at the north and south-east edges.
These gardens also line up with the main road and pedestrian pathway that frame two edges of the site, helping to the reduce the visual impact of the structure.
“The building is set back from the street, allowing the sunlight to reach the school courtyard set across the street,” explained studio founders Alexandre Becker, Paul Pflughaupt and Julien Paulré. “This setup allows respiration and gives space back to the pedestrian passage.”
While some of the building’s walls are clad with timber planks, others are covered with pre-weathered zinc. At ground level, there are also walls of dark brickwork, which demarcate entrances.
Windows with orange frames add colour to the elevations. This feature is echoed in the building’s stairwells and corridors, where walls, floors and railings are uniformly painted in the same hue.
No more than three apartments are located on each floor and the angular shapes of the building give each home a non-standard shape.
“The created volumes allow different typologies for the apartments as well as creating views for all,” said the architects.
South-facing loggias allow apartments to benefit from sunlight during the peak of the day.
Graphic logos adorn doors to direct residents to bicycle storage and bin stores, while a grassy terrace is located on the roof.
Located in the Mouffetard area, Latin Quarter of Paris, our project aims to de-densify the heart of the city block in which it is located.
The building is set back from the street allowing the sunlight to reach the school courtyard set across the street. This setup allows respiration and gives space back to the pedestrian passage. The roof line is continuous and guaranties the continuity of the facades over the street. The set up on the plot is effective, the street is no longer only functional it has become sumptuous.
The construction is a unique volume that has been hollowed out. The recesses generate a course. They punctuate and follow our movements. The created volumes allow different typologies for the apartments as well as creating views for all. The project is more an architectural device than a sculpture.
The primary concrete structure supports wooden based facades. The envelope is of pre-aged zinc and wooden openwork cladding. The hall, stairs and landings are set up in a unique volume that has no partitions; the different levels are visually linked. Perambulation is naturally illuminated in the common spaces. Apartments have from two to three orientations. Hollow construction elements were refused. The apartments are luxurious.
A compact building, a well-insulated wooden structure, solar panels, double glazing windows, a planted roof terrace and loggias with a southern exposure allow us to respect the requirements of Paris’s Climate Plan and to reduce the ecological impact of the building. It is architecture of an efficient nature.
Developer: ELOGIE Architects: Vous Êtes Ici Architectes (A. Becker, J. Paulré, P. Pflughaupt) General contractor: Fayolle & Fils Technical engineering: FACEA Economist: BMA Environment engineering: ICADE
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