Wooden House | France | 2020 - THE [RADICAL] PROJECT

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The 100% wooden house results from a call for projects initiated by the Bourdaisière Castle (France) as part of the second edition of the Forest and Wood Festival (2017). The stated target was to achieve a house of around 55sqm with a ground floor and a first floor, for 2 people, using only wood.

The design process was based on confronting a search for spatial qualities of the house that would change our idea of living space and an exploration of wooden construction systems.

By wrapping the programs of the house around a central wet-core, we generate a great impression of volume with a double-height that links the living space with the bedroom. The interior topography gives a hierarchy to the different usage: standing in the kitchen to face the view; seating on the window height in the living room; a slope as a sofa; the room on the higher level to guarantee its privacy while generating a covered terrace below it. Every volumetric move creates a new opportunity.

In order to serve these ambitions, the structures put in place are a combination of archaic and high-tech solutions. The house stands on acacia piles chosen for their water-repellent quality. The chestnut trunks that serve for the columns are coming directly from the park of the castle. They remain raw and have been processed with CNC in a workshop before simply being embedded in the piles. The use of CLT in the composition of the facade ensures large openings with a minimum of interruptions, as well as using a structural element as a finished surface for the interior of the dwelling. The raw logs in the smooth interior space recall the natural origin of the material and bring the forest into the house. The floors and the roof are, for their part, made from a more classic wooden frame.

The entire structure has been modeled beforehand in order to generate the cutting plans which were carried out by digital cutting in the workshop, allowing rapid assembly on site. Like the columns, the facade also offered the opportunity to explore the capabilities of the short supply chain. The chestnut trunks stored in the park for several years were processed into planks in a sawmill about ten kilometers away from the construction site before being brought back for installation. Without undergoing any treatment, the color of the facade will naturally evolve and get closer to the surrounding tones.

The project brings together technical solutions that link the origins of construction to today’s high-tech industry. We formalize the ambition to reconnect the inhabitant with their built environment.