MAISON CACTUS / Artist’s home and studio for a person with disabilities.
The Cactus house is a small townhouse designed in the Celleneuve district of Montpellier. It fits on a narrow strip of former market gardening land, a testament to our region’s winemaking past. Located in the middle of a residential area, composed of neo-provencal habitats and dense contemporary housings, in direct proximity to the historic and classified heart of Celleneuve.
In this heterogeneous urban fabric, at the crossroads of various architectural languages from different eras, the project aims to propose a contemporary architecture which reinterprets the codes of Provencal villas rather than denying them. A Mediterranean house adapted to its climate, its territory, its time and especially to its owner.
The Cactus house is also the result of a close collaboration with the client, it was specifically conceived in relation to his handicap. The design aims to facilitate his daily life, and respond to his unique needs, particularly through the organization of the rooms, the functional optimization of the spaces or the ergonomics of the furniture which was created and drawn by both the user and the architect.
Obviously, the project is a minimalist re-interpretation of the Mediterranean patio villa. The patio becomes the articulation of the spatial organization by distributing light all around the house and creating a room for outdoor purpose, protected from the wind and the midday sun. It also offers a feeling of intimacy and a sense of security sought by its occupant.
The introspective typology of the space as well as the architectural language developed on the two principal elevations tend towards a silent architecture which protects itself and must be discovered.
The project is a minimalist one, it displays two architectural languages, monochrome sculpted volumes echoing to the traditional habitat, which rest on a base clad in a unitary envelope composed by altering cladding and slatted shutters like the Mediterranean « amados » which provide security, intimacy, thermal and light regulation of the interior spaces.
The low cost of the operation, which has been respected, has determined the constructive principles. The project mainly uses manufactured building materials, integrates from the early phase of conception low cost implementations of the current Provencal construction which at the same time allowed us to benefit from the know-how and quality of local craftsmen.
The Cactus house humbly fits into the urban landscape and offers its occupant the personal and professional living conditions adapted to his needs.
