Located in the beautiful French village of Le Puy-Sainte-Reparade, PietriArchitectes‘s project MaisonP nestles right into a cosy, sunny hillside. offering a panoramic view over the Alps. Surrounded by lush, dense greenery that makes the space feel refreshing and cheerful, the home looks mod and stylish on the outside but actually provides a private haven behind the bordering leaves.
During the design process, creative and building teams aimed to alter the natural land around the home as little as possible. Instead, they wished to incorporate the house into the landscape in a way that’s attractive and eye catching without detracting from the present beauty of the hillside cove. In building the actual foundation and structure, teams changed the natural slope of the hill minimally, leaving the space with a raw, wild feeling character and preserving its original appeal.
The house itself is made up of two separate parts with distinct features and purposes. Guests encounter the main house first, followed by a drystone outbuilding that serves as a relaxation area, social space, and pool house. Within the main house itself, there is also a neat division of space, just to make sure that guests make the most of everything it has to offer.
The first floor of the main house features a spacious garage, which comprises the first “volume” of the house and sits on the main floor. Wandering towards the second volume, you’ll find a welcoming entryway, a gorgeous kitchen, and a cozy living room area with seating set up for conversation. The third and final volume of the main house features four relaxing bedrooms, including the master bedroom, each decorated in a way that’s clutter free so as to appear calming rather than minimal.
Moving on from the main house and its three sections, you’ll find the outbuilding. This is a smaller structure of about 95 square metres and it sits slightly higher on the hillside than the main house. Here, you’ll find another lovely, socially driven seating area but within walls that slide back in order to create a very open concept space that blends interior and exterior experiences. This is convenient since it’s right next to the luscious pool!
Between the two main buildings of the house, you’ll encounter a stunning, plant-lined canal that reflects the land around it beautifully and causes a sense of quiet calm. Between that, the pond near the entryway, and the lengthy pool out back, it becomes clear that water plays as much of a role in establishing the way this house pays tribute to the nature around it as the luscious greenery throughout and around it does.
The way that MaisonP is divided, rather than being built as a monolith, might seem stylish or modern, but it’s actually conceptual and referential. The idea is to create an architectural composition by building things around valuable empty space, rather than just filling spaces with buildings. This idea is reminiscent of historical architectural styles in Provence, which are referred to as being “bioclimatic”.
Inside the home, colour and decor schemes are kept just as light, airy, and natural looking as the sunshine and plant life outside. Very light wood floors and light spilling in through countless windows keeps things bright and cheerful, eliminating the need for crowded decor or overwhelming colour. Instead, a few bright art pieces are scattered throughout in order to bring personality, but furnishings are otherwise kept to a clean white.
Photographs by Philippe Biolatto
