Text description provided by the architects. This project is the home of a Luxembourg diplomat, who is a great lover of the arts and paintings. The house lies directly on the left bank of the Moselle, at the entrance to a wine-growing town, and is integrated in the vineyards.
It consists of three levels and a converted attic; however, one only recognises this fact from the Moselle because part of the building is embedded in the earth due to the slope of the site. The lowest level houses the entrance area, garage and basement and indeed vanishes on three sides into ground. The house is lit only from the southeast façade towards the Moselle, and the client has to take into account the fact that it could be inundated during severe flooding.
The first floor also partly disappears into the slope, it contains the cooking, dining and living area as well as a terrace above the garage towards the Moselle. On the second floor are the bedrooms and a second terrace that faces towards the vineyard. There is an additional sleeping area in the attic.
The residents of Wormeldange quickly gave this house a nickname “the praying hand in the vineyard”. This is derived from the articulation of the building volume into "fingers" that only touch each other on the slope side. This treatment allowed the architect to introduce a great deal of light to the house. Two bands of windows in the roof and the façade interrupt the skin of the building, which is otherwise homogeneously clad with Corten steel.
