Une maison pour surfer / Java Architecture


© CaroLine Dethier

© CaroLine Dethier

© CaroLine Dethier

© CaroLine Dethier

Text description provided by the architects. This family home define a way of life.

The clients, a young couple living in Paris first contacted JAVA to build a vacation house.


© CaroLine Dethier

© CaroLine Dethier

During the design process was born their first child, and this birth was followed by a shift in their life aims. The weekend house has to transform into a family home in tune with their new lifestyle, mainly focused on surfing and outdoor living.


© CaroLine Dethier

© CaroLine Dethier

According to these new goals, the house has to be built with a reduced budget and within a year. The main requirements were then budget and time.


© CaroLine Dethier

© CaroLine Dethier

On this basis JAVA designed a project reducing at the maximum the construction time and the ground footprint of the house.


© CaroLine Dethier

© CaroLine Dethier

Located on a hilly forest ground, the construction process and later the house had to have a minimum impact on the surroundings.


© CaroLine Dethier

© CaroLine Dethier

Therefore it was decided to build the house with prefabricated modules and on the top of the hill, where none of the big trees had to be cut down.

The canopy can therefore be admired from the ground floor of the house.


© CaroLine Dethier

© CaroLine Dethier

Echoing the vertical rhythm of the pine timbers, the house is covered by a dark wood cladding, transforming gradually the dense volume of the house into an open porch protected from rain and wind by a corrugated polycarbonate cladding.


© CaroLine Dethier

© CaroLine Dethier

This porch, reminiscent of the typical airail of the Landes farmhouse opens the living space and the family life towards the outdoors.


Plans

Plans

First designed as a budget-saving element, the porch is now the main space of the home, where the family like to gather.


© CaroLine Dethier

© CaroLine Dethier