A look at the « échoppes » in a new light

A look at the « échoppes » in a new light (typical houses of the Bordeaux region)

This typical house of the Bordeaux region stands as a reference to the families living in our town. They have been renovated several times, again and again. Yet, as architects rooted in our region, they remain an important concern to face. The clients of the Bordeaux region, not always familiar or keen on modernity, often think their project to be built « in stone » which is the traditional construction material of the region.
Thus, while we were working on this project, we asked ourselves how to reinterpret the model given, by bringing sunlight inside and by giving the house more transparency and volume as well. As a matter of fact, most clients around Bordeaux think in terms of square meters to be built, but we can hardly submit them emptiness and « cubic meters » giving more value to the volumes.

Setting up the plan was simple: a very high and empty volume divides the house giving light to the rooms on the ground floor, but separating the parents’ and the children’s rooms on the first floor. This empty space is actually both the heart of the house and its breathing space as well.
On top of the staircase the children can either play there or stretch out on the catamaran net to watch movies being shown on the white wall high up the first floor.

Although solid limestone boulders are used in the front of the house (the street façade) to fit the local housing, its designs differs inside from the usual composition and favor a beam (bois) / a girder (fer) pole where the vertical and the horizontal lines are put in the limelight.

This design matches the back wall of the house (garden façade) where the horizontal and vertical lines are put to the fore thanks to the use of metal girders (HEB type) give the rhythm and weave the whole. Transparent glass is used on the living room level whereas brick-on-edge window partitions are used in the bedrooms to give a notion of plain and void as they show solid and empty parts.