House extension in Nantes (France)
Extending a house means reducing the exterior space of a plot. The theme of the project that we developed for the “landscape house” is the restitution of an exterior space.
Architect: Mabire Reich Architects
Project Name: The Landscape House
Status: Built
The site of the project is located in Nantes (France), in an area established on a ridge of the Armorican Massif. The 300m² plot hosts at its bottom a small house as a testimony to the past worker of the neighborhood.
We designed a path created from a play with successive terraces connected by ramps, forming an itinerary which opens successively to a patio, to the landscape of the heart of block’s small urban gardens and the great scenery on the southern shores of the Loire.
The development of this path defines a surface. The volume situated bellow this surface forms the extension of the house, a series of living spaces (living room, kitchen, workshop) connected by oblique views, put in relation through a play with the levels, without any interior door.
The relationship with the landscape is twofold: the house is not only a potential of various links with the exterior, but the work with the material is the creation of an interior landscape. The graining of the plywood, the motifs drawn by the rain on the metallic structure during construction, the moiré effect of the resin or the repetitive pattern of the cement tiles create a separate universe, the same way as the clouds draw unexpected landscapes inviting to contemplation.
Mabire Reich Architects
To extend a house is to reduce the outside space of the parcel on which it takes place.The theme we have developed for “the landscape house” is that of the restoration of this space.The project site is located in Nantes, Chantenay, a district located in the furrow of Brittany, one of the crest lines of the Armorican massif. The plot of 300 m² hosts a small house in the background testifying to the neighborhood worker past.We set up a course consisting of a series of successive terraces connected by ramps, forming a route opening successively on a patio, the landscape of the heart of islets and the great landscape of the southern banks of the Loire.
The development of this course defines a surface. The volume below this surface is the extension of the house: a sequence of living spaces (living room, kitchen, workshop) connected by oblique views, connected by sets of levels, without any interior door.The relationship between the two houses is articulated around the patio formed by the distance between the 2 volumes and the gradual narrowing of the new volume to distribute the old house.
The result is a theatrical effect, a “patio window” around which each house, and the spectacle of life that unfolds there, constitutes the first landscape of its counterpart.A lilac, a wisteria, espalier pear and the many flowers that adorn the patio are inserted with happiness in this opposite and give it a true vegetal dimension.The “landscape house” is not only a potential of various relationships outside, but also a work on the material that is the creation of an interior landscape: the veining of the plywood, the patterns drawn during the construction by the rain on the metallic structure, the moiré of the resin or the repetitive patterns of the cement tiles constitute a universe in their own right, just as the clouds create unexpected landscapes that are conducive to contemplation.
