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Architects: Atelier LAVIT
- Area: 110 m²
- Year: 2022
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Manufacturers: Acqualift, Shüco France
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Engineers Firm: Bollinger + Grohmann Ingenieuere, Bollinger + Grohmann
Text description provided by the architects. According to its owners' wishes, the SOURCE pavilion is a unique and tailor-made pool house nestled in the heart of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, in the Villa Montmorency neighborhood. This remarkable pavilion discreetly emerges among the Haussmannian residential buildings in a sheltered green area spanning over a thousand square meters. Respecting the site’s balance with nature, the project is strategically positioned in the northwest corner of the plot to allow the living spaces and pergola to open towards the south. This arrangement maximizes the distance from neighboring properties and provides a calming refuge.
The carefully conceived landscape plan immerses its guests in a quiet urban oasis surrounded by a large variety of plants, bushes, and fruit trees. SOURCE is envisioned as a unique architectural creation, combining the lightness of an outdoor pergola, the functionality of a poolhouse, and the charm of a treehouse. This fusion results in an unusual volumetric design, combining multiple spaces and levels, offering an indoor living area of approximately seventy square meters.
On the ground floor, the wooden terrace acts as a transitional element between the garden's greenery and the mineral paving of the pool. This concrete flooring and its surroundings create a continuous flow of materials between the water basin and the living area, composed of a lounging space, a summer kitchen, and a changing room. The pool’s movable floor allows the outdoor area to be completely modular.
The pergola and roof are characterized by two inclined flat surfaces constructed from Douglas wood fir slats, which conceal the habitable volumes of the two bedrooms and their amenities. Nearly invisible from the garden, these rooms feature expansive glass openings. Guests are gently cradled among the tree canopies and experience the peacefulness of a treehouse. This sensation is further enhanced by a birch tree growing in the pavilion's inner patio, hiding the spiral staircase and walkway leading to the bedrooms. The inclined pergola, opening towards the sky, imparts a sense of increased brightness and spaciousness to the living area and pool while offering protection from the rain.
Given the site's narrow access due to a passage less than a meter wide, the pavilion was designed as a completely prefabricated structure, easily transportable and assemblable on-site. A mixed steel and wood framework was deemed the most effective construction technique. The engineering firm Bollinger+Grohmann played a crucial role in co-designing the metal framework, the various cantilevered elements, and the intricate design of the main structure's pillars.
