Gone with the wind...
By tilting a universal shape by a few degrees, the studio elua® distorts the traditional geometry of the small suburban house to turn it into a new volume, abstract and immaculate. A rebirth that galvanises the inside space and disrupts the conventions of urban space.
It’s gone with the wind…
A SMALL SITE WIDE OPENED.
The building site is located in Merignac, inside of Bordeaux’s urban area. Part of a housing neighbourhood between the Haut-Brion’s vineyards and the small Tenet’s park, the plot is opened on public space on two of its sides, taking the shape of a long 232m2 rectangle, at the same time extension and limit to the housing block. A small typical house from the 20’s, of modest surface area, takes place in the northwest corner of the plot.
The project has been imagined for a young couple and their child.
The existing building - abandoned for several years - is in poor condition, no longer habitable and at risk of collapsing. Vegetation has entered the house, distorting the volumes and causing cracks in the brickwork. It will be demolished to make place for the new project.
OPTIMISATION.
The new house has been designed according to local urban regulations, stepping aside from the 3 meters limit of contiguity with public space and not withdrawing more than 5 meters inside the building site.
More so, its situation on the plot has been decided in order to supress the shadow projected by the house on the adjoining garden, while freeing space for a patio in its place.
In general, the new house makes the most of the site in order to offer a practical inside space and clear out the most possible garden space for its inhabitants.
The built up area of all the constructions do not exceed the authorized maximum of 40% of the site’s area.
The ground coverage of the house is 63m2 and an upper floor with an attic is fitted in the wooden framework to add surface area to this little volume.
HAPPILY OFF-BALANCED
The long construction takes the iconic shape of a house with double-pitched roof while drawing inspiration from farm sheds, dressed in simple and sturdy materials, devoid of any stylistic effect. Yet, as an illustration of the fable of The Oak and the Reed, the distinctive shape of the house leans towards west and twists its double pitched outline in a static unbalance, alluding to the deformations of old wooden barns patinated by weather and time. The house carries on the happy alignment of the varied inhabited shapes in the street and ends the housing block with humour, questioning at the same time its own solidity and the permanence of things in general.
Dressed in spotless white bodywork, the leaning shape emphasizes its great simplicity and reveals itself a white page opened to its inhabitants. The front door of the house alone is signalled by a bright colour, a vivid orange, as an invitation.
A LARGE VOLUME, LEANING
The skin of the building, tilted towards the outside, makes the inside space lean, giving it the same happy deformation.
We enter trough the orange front door, and the eye perceives an open volume, all in one piece, illustrating the idea of the barn and its big multipurpose space contained by the four main walls. The simplicity of the space is emphasized by the plain and raw materials : OSB boards on the walls and painted concrete on the floor.
The celadon countertop in the kitchen and the white technical space are the only objects added to the ground floor. The technical space contains the storeroom, boiler room and fridge ; and a series of storage units, a desk and a lavatory are included, hidden behind discrete wood panels.
In order to allow the modulation of this large volume, a fabric curtain slides between the entrance and the technical space, enabling the inhabitants to create a guest room, a workplace or any extra space that could require more intimacy. The curtain is imprinted with a black line drawing of the women-brushes from Yves Klein’s blue period anthropometries.
The gable wall is widely opened to the outside, the three-part patio-door glides to open largely on the garden and the bottom rail disappears in the floor. The concrete terrace materialises the projected shadow of the house and extends the inside volume without interruption. On the south wall, only one opening is imagined, at the house’s west angle. In the likeness of a wooden lattice, the opening is dressed in the same metal cladding as the rest of the building, but perforated to allow visibility from the inside. The rough beams of the summer sun shall not pass.
A HOUSE INSIDE THE HOUSE
Inside this big volume opened under the roof structure, a house, painted in International Klein Blue, is floating in the space, separated from the framework, extending the leaning of the space to the upper floor. This house, not supported by any pile, contains two bedrooms, a bathroom, a lavatory and a small opened attic. The bedrooms are designed as little wooden tents, designed around the visible framework and the OSB floor.
The wooden staircase, with its white metallic banister, draws a graphic thread joining the two stories ; but it is also a small inside balcony, a platform to live and gaze trough the large triangular window of the gable wall, leaning on the large handrail of the landing.
A GREENHOUSE GARAGE
The garage, located at he back of the plot, is imagined as a greenhouse for the inhabitants to shelter their citrus. To match the leaning volume of the house, the garage presents a simple pitched roof in the same dynamic and is dressed in a translucent milky cladding on its entire surface. Facing the house’s patio-doors, the cladding becomes transparent and reveals the vegetation inside.
ENVIRONMENT
The bevelled shape optimises the quantity of sunlight received in the morning while protecting the inside spaces from the sunrays of the summer evenings. In this way, the western frontage with its large gliding patio-doors and its triangular opening is protected from the sun’s warmth by the natural lean of the wall acting as a protection for the terrace. The long vertical opening on the southern side is protected from the sun by the perforated cladding in front of the glass panel. Thus, the sunlight inside the house is subdued, like by a wooden lattice.
The all house is built out of glued laminated timber, dressed in a reinforced insulation and OSB boards acting as structural bracing. The presence of wood in every layer of the construction insures high quality insulation.
By tilting a universal shape by a few degrees, the studio elua® distorts the traditional geometry of the small suburban house to turn it into a new volume, abstract and immaculate. A rebirth that galvanises the inside space and disrupts the conventions of urban space.
It’s gone with the wind…
