A SUSPENDED HOUSE, OPEN TO NATURE
Set within a valley at the foot of a wooded hillside, the house nestles in a landscape often veiled in shade, sheltered by the slope and the trees. It is in this chiaroscuro that the idea of a rehabilitation and a suspended extension took shape: a light, open volume, connected to nature and filled with light.
The original building, a noble construction, has been entirely restored. The intervention aimed not to transform but to purify and reveal. Superfluous partitions and finishes were removed, freeing up the spaces and highlighting the original timber structure. Plaster coatings were stripped away, the shutters cleaned, revealing the texture of the stonework and the flint fragments. This process of exposure returns to the house its primal materiality and reaffirms its anchoring in the landscape of the Vexin.
In contrast to this mineral presence, the extension adopts a complementary stance — one of lightness and luminosity. Set perpendicular to the main volume, it detaches itself from the shaded area to capture maximum sunlight. Suspended three meters above the natural ground, it engages in dialogue with the slope and surrounding vegetation. Linked by a wooden footbridge clad in polished stainless steel, it opens toward the forest and the reflections of the sky.
Its flint-aggregate concrete foundations establish a direct link with the existing materials and local resources. On this base rises a triangulated pine structure — fine, rhythmic, and light — shaping the aerial silhouette of the project. Between anchoring and suspension, this house in the Vexin explores the relationship between shadow, light, and material — an architecture in balance, open to nature and to time.
