The Dortoir Familial, designed by NADAAA, focuses on merging with the landscape as the slipped court provides simultaneous interiority and exteriority—protected and private as well as extroverted and engaged. The most significant result of this integration of landscape and house is the production of a monumental vaulted threshold to a central courtyard. More images and architects’ description after the break.
For centuries, the enclosed courtyard has been overlaid on various geographic settings—each time transformed according to the climate, rituals, and construction practices of the place. A vehicle to capture the outdoors within the building, the courtyard is defined by its interiority.
This house respects strict zoning guidelines, while merging with the landscape, extending natural flora over the roof. Sited within an olive tree grove, Pinus Pinea, and a vineyard, it seeks to leverage the sloping terrain, producing sustainable systems for amplification and cultivation. The vault is a ruled surface that mediates between the geometry of the supporting stair at the northeast corner, the pool, and living areas above.
The main armature of the house appears as a single concrete monolith around two perpendicular beams; the first, the wall between the pool and the lower east wing, and the second, the cantilevered wall on the north edge of the house. Embedded within the spatial organizational logic of the house, these beams are encrypted within the “experience” of the house: windows into the pool, doorways from living areas to bedrooms, and views to the exterior, using the economies of opening to assure structural continuity.
Structurally, the roof is a series of surface-active vaults that produce strong lateral stability. The slope of the vault maximizes the zoning envelope in order to bring in southern light, and it is the vault that forms the foundation of a green roof. Beneath the roof are the primary living, eating, and sleeping spaces. The lower wing is conceived as a street-corridor, activated by a reading room and bunk rooms that open directly onto the landscape.
Architects: NADAAA Location: Ramatuelle, France Principal-in-Charge: Nader Tehrani Project Manager: Harry Lowd Project Team: Dan Gallagher, Katie Faulkner, Lisa LaCharite-Lostritto, Tim Wong, Craig Chapple, John Houser, Ellee Lee, Kevin Lee, Parke MacDowell, Ryan Murphy, Jonathan Palazzolo, Caitlin Scott, Joana Rafael, Rawan Alsane Structural Engineer: Beterem Ingénierie, Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger MEP Engineer: Beterem Ingénierie Local Architects: Bidard & Raissi (Paris, France), Agence Francois Vieillecroze (St. Tropez, France) Area: 490 sqm
