Atelier Carle, James Brittain · La Charbonnière

James Brittain

This house has a rustic stamp. Its scale refers to our roots, our childhood places. Its architecture is more countryside than modernist, closer to the earth than to the sky: it hugs the profile of the land. Its internal organization is organic, like our beautiful rural homes designed without an architect...
The plan plots an interior yard fronting on the St. Lawrence River, like an arm that hugs and protects. The exterior volumetry is abstract and intriguing. It emerges from the soil, like a sculptural object, facing the river’s monumentality. The charred cedar walls, produced by the shou-sugi-ban technique, contribute to the strangeness of this form, which divides the landscape without imposing itself. It is inscribed in its setting.