maison L France, Yvelines Property, Rural French Home, Building Photos, Architect
maison L, Yvelines : House in Rural France
Contemporary French Residence design by architecturespossibles
26 Jun 2013
Yvelines Contemporary Residence
Design: Christian Pottgiesser Architecturespossibles
Location: Yvelines, France
photo : George Dupin
Maison L France
Less than half an hour’s drive west from Paris’ city center, designed as an extension of a private residence to an 18th-century structure, sought to provide every family member with a private realm. The roughly 5000 m2 plot of old trees called for a project (616 / 926 m2 gross area) that would leave the spacious ground predominantly untouched to ensure a minimal impact on the mature landscape.
photo : George Dupin
Local building codes only allow one single building with a gabled or hipped roof. However, in exceptional cases, flat roofs, as long as they do not exceed 25m2 each (garages), can be provided. Thus, projecting above the accessible planted roof five tower-like volumes have been argued and actually implemented.
Positioned to frame a specific perspective of the site, each flat-roofed, eight-meters-high concrete “tower“ houses a dressing room and storage space (0), bathroom (1) and a bedroom (2). This vertical topology induces a natural ventilation. An important air circulation favours the extraction of hot air in summer, whereas, in winter, the upper areas don’t require additional heating.
photos : George Dupin
The design foresaw an amorphous plinth storey with curved stone walls (slate) heaped up with earth and used as a general living area. There emerges a completely “superfluous” space without specific functional qualities. As if a toothpaste-tube-like device could absorb all programmatic, psychological and urban design requirements. Here, most various and adoptable uses become imaginable and consequently possible – a superfluousness revealing necessary.
House and landscape are intimately interwoven, boundaries between indoors and outdoors are blurred. The south-eastern facade emerges out of a complex topography between the house and its landscape. Carved towards every entrance in the glazing the river-bed-shaped, undulating terrain distorts, blending the construction into nature.
Maison L images / information from Christian Pottgiesser Architecturespossibles
13 Oct 2012
maison L in Yvelines – RIBA Manser Medal Winner in 2012
maison L, France
photo : George Dupin
RIBA Manser Medal – winning architect + building news
2 Jul 2012
maison L, Yvelines
Architect: architecturespossibles
RIBA Awards 2012 Citation:
maison L, France
The brief suggested the L-shaped general plan and the use of an indigenous stone for retaining walls. But it did not suggest half burying a series of interconnecting cave-like rooms, nor the five three-storey board-marked concrete towers that poke out of the rockery roof. This is where the genius of the architect comes in.
photos : George Dupin
This is masterful house-making by an ingenious architect who has brought a little bit of San Gimignano to this corner of the Ile de France.
House in Yvelines – RIBA Awards winner, 2012
maison L, Yvelines – Building Information
Title: maison L
Practice: architecturespossibles
Client: Private
Photographs: George Dupin
maison L, Yvelines images / information from RIBA
Location: Yvelines, France
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