✶ Nomination for "Première œuvre" prize 2013 edition
AN APPLE TREE SPARED!
For our first creation in a housing estate at the heart of l’Oise, we had to extend a house, preserving the apple tree that was a few metres from the facade.
First we were confused by this obligation, which limited the possibility of extension, but we thought to ourselves that it could be one of the real factors of the sustainable challenge: a strong emotional attachment to an object, a « living being », even if the latter goes against the logic of the architectural project.
AN INSERTION AVOIDING THE OBLIGATIONS OF AN EXISTING COMPOSITE
Built in 1956 and extended twice, the house offered an aggregation of volumes with several sloping roofs.
The project had to preserve the main entrance at the North of the house, not to obstruct the angled window of the living room, line up the projected roof with the existing gutter, preserving the view and the light coming from the levels of the underfloor ...
Horizontally and vertically limited, and in order to create a continuity between the existing flooring on the ground floor and the extension, we chose a volume standing on piles, freeing the garden level from the ground at the same time.
The space under the piles creates a covered place, suitable to children games, reading, summer pre-dinner drinks ...
MATERIALITY
The transplant skin is treated with machined materials, translucent glass and clear glass for the woodwork. It dematerializes the volume impact, while bringing out -by contrast- the plant material, which is the essence of the place. Depending on the light, the envelope changes in appearance, and turns into a luminous lantern after dark.
If the project develops a spatial and functional continuity, it represents a clear fracture through its contemporary image, while answering the original wants and needs of the client: to feel safe and immersed in the nature at the same time.
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