Vignette

Located in a forgotten infill on Rue de la Vignette, this house was an opportunity to apply a great deal of research conducted by the Karbon' office on contemporary construction and architectural practices.

The house is designed in two volumes connected by a central patio. The main street-facing section houses the entrance and a garage/workshop on the ground floor, while the bedrooms are located on the upper floors. At the back, a more modest space houses the living rooms, which open onto the garden below. The patio brings natural light to all the rooms on the ground floor and allows a visual opening between the workshop and the living room.

With the aim of building with very low carbon emissions, the project gives pride of place to local, bio-sourced and/or reused materials. Thus, a timber support system - insulated with straw bales protected by a clay coating on both sides - forms the main structure. The two facades are simple, robust and ‘locally’ treated: at the front, a reused openwork Belgian brick laid on a white concrete portico, while the rear facade is clad with planed Belgian Douglas planks. The interior materials and equipment also follow a low-carbon construction logic with hemplime concrete partitions and reused floor and wall tiles, among other things. The priority given to the choice of materials is accompanied by simple and pragmatic technical choices for comfort and indoor climate control: A+ type natural ventilation, solar hot water tank and a small condensing boiler for the necessary additional heating in winter.