Maison Broccard
A single-family house for two parents and their twin-children. In spite of the limited budget and the expected high construction-costs due to building on a steep plot, the program listed a spacious open living-cooking-eating space, three bedrooms, a guest-room, seperate bathrooms and a large recreational-space.
Right from the beginning we chose the strategy to mainly provide a lot of space for the family. Regarding this we developed a spatial structure which draws its opulence from its spatial typology. Look-throughs, look-outs, openness and density, brighter and darker spaces interact and explicitely generate a timeless, sensual atmosphere far from any fashionable materialistic preferences.
Without consciously looking for it, we thereby developed the design within a close relationship to the strucures and spatial orders of traditional Valais farm-houses: an open (work-)hall in the basement, the familiar togetherness of cooking, eating and living on the main level and the intimate structure of smaller sleeping compartments on top of it all.
With its differentiation of floor-levels and with the distinctive bending of the southern facade, the building directly reacts towards the steep, northfacing slope of its plot.
The different levels in section thereby provide access to all terrain-bound floors, without exceeding the legal height limitations on the downhill-facing facade. While the bending of the facade generates a larger south-facing surface to bring a maximum of sunlight through the high windows deep into the house.
The construction with its massive base and its wooden top gives a contemporary interpretation to the old vernacular building in the Alps in general and specially the Vails farm-houses oft he close context. Due to the restricted budget we dismissed all fashionable craftsman-chique, but decisively worked with standardized construction products: exterior plasterwork, zinc sheeting, standard-profiles, plywood...mainly stock items and products from the manufacturers catalogues.
The reference to the vernacular rather happens on a more subtle level: a gabled (cement-)stone roof, wooden windows, larch surfaces, a compact volume. Thereby the actual appearance is kept explicitely contemporary and roots the building within the banal context of a spreading agglomeration from the main city down in the valley.
