Extension and restructuring of a house in Houilles

Discover the work of the Atelier Florence Gaudin through one of his achievements, the restructuring and extension of a detached house in Houilles, in the Paris region. The workshop works on projects of various scales, but always with the same objective: to combine innovative research and pragmatic rigor.

What the architects say about this project: This extension of a 1930s house, typical of its time, consists of the juxtaposition of a second independent volume, a contemporary duplicate of the existing one. This bias responds to two major objectives: first, to maintain the proportions and modenatures of the existing pavilion; and on the other hand, to constitute two strong entities, respectively anchored in their time, in order to generate the in-between, recurring theme of the work of the agency. This distance between the existing and the project operates on different levels: Conceptually, it generates an in-between, the "event" of the project where crystallizes the "meeting" of spaces, uses, eras and so on. In terms of urban planning, this distancing makes it possible to fit into the contextual fabric: despite the large surface area of the program, the volumetry of the project respects the built scale of the neighborhood. Finally, technically, this gap, this time physical, ensures a structural independence of the two buildings, avoiding underpinning recovery and differential settlement. Under this volume and between the two "buildings", a vast and free space is developing which welcomes the rooms of common life, largely open and bathed by the light of the West. A hopper equipped with a home net, allows to enjoy this place of meeting, between two eras, but also between the generations, since it connects the space of the children, located in the new part, to that of the parents , located in the old part. These spaces "in-between" constitute the privileged place of the expected meeting: the existing pavilion is prolonged inside, creating a game of inversion of the facade, always constituted of its original materials (stones millstones, bricks and coated), but becoming an inner wall. This indoor-outdoor mirror game showcases the history of the house.