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Architects: Aurore Dudevant + Philippe Zulaica
- Area: 186 m²
- Year: 2015
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Photographs:Benoit Bost, Ludmilla Cerveny
Text description provided by the architects. THE TINY PLACE
« So the tiny, a narrow door if ever there was one, opens a world. The particular of a thing can be the sign of a new world, a world which as all the worlds, contains the attributes of the greatness.
In La poétique de l’espace, G. Bachelard
Everything starts in 2013 with the visit of an empty plot of land in a borough of Reims (France). The future owners wondered about the possible construction of a house on this strange triangular plot of land. It is well orientated, there is enough space to build a 100m2 house with garden and it is little overlooked. Nevertheless, the sharp form of the ground seems difficult to occupy. At the same time, we were looking for a place to build an architecture office, a space to work and study.
We made the following proposition to the client : using the necessary space to build the house and employing the triangular extremity with the small office building.
The program was then established : A house, a small office, an exhibition space open to artists, architects and musicians.
We started to work and quickly decided of the external form : A dark and almost blind façade on the street, with concrete base. On the other side very open and ultra luminous living spaces.
House
The house is built on the larger part of the site. So a garden can be created on the back side.
The northern facade on the street, is almost blind to preserve the intimacy of inhabitants. Living spaces are largely opened to the southern garden. On the ground floor, there is a complete life unit (living room, kitchen, main room with bathroom) and on the first floor a huge mezzanine is connected to a guests room. With large horizontal windows inserted between the 2 slopes of the roof, these spaces have an optimum luminosity.
The double height of the living room and geometrical lines of the ceiling create a set of intermingling volumes. This space has a small surface but with an impression of greatness.
On the mezzanine, a large window offers a picturesque view on the surrounding gardens. Oak parquet floor and stairs bring warm notes to this immaculate decoration. Finally some circular lamps punctuate the different rooms of the house in counterpoint to the ceiling sharp lines.
Small office building
The office building skip into the acute part of the plot of land, abandoned for a long time.
With a reduced ground surface it develops on 3 storeys high. Each storey's got a function : ground floor is the exhibition space, first floor receive the open space office and the second floor is dedicated to meeting room with a small kitchen facilities and terrace. A black metallic stair connect these non divided spaces.
Voluntary bare and raw, working spaces are very luminous and good place for work. Joist floor slabs stay apparent, all ironworks are crude steel. Only walls received a white painting. A dark purple colour is applied on the triple height of the staircase wall. This dusky wall blurs the end of the space, the black steel stairs comes to end in.
Finally the terrace ends this architectural promenade leaving pink and yellow shining.
Le lieu minuscule
Le Lieu Minuscule, which means In french The Tiny Place, is a place dedicated to architecture and contemporary art : an exhibition space and a workspace. It has been inaugurated in September 2015 by Aurore Dudevant and Philippe Zulaica, architects. It takes place on the ground floor of the small building office, conceived to be occupied by an architecture office on the first and second floor.
Le Lieu Minuscule is a project carried and maturated for a long time. Born form fuzzy, crossed and perhaps contradictory desires : to have a working place for professional and personal research; create a place of exposure to present the work of artists and architects sharing commons reflexions; to accommodate musicians and performances in a singular space.
Le Lieu Minuscule exhibits monographic or thematic exhibitions. This place is the continuation of the online review Trapèze, contemporary art architecture and landscape created in 2009.
