Description
This house is a contemporary design by Philippe Richard. Built in 2005, it is inspired by the construction system created by Renzo Piano – the famous Italian architect of the Centre Pompidou – with its cladding of terracotta slabs.
The house, with its large windows, offers a beautiful view of the surrounding planted garden. It comprises two levels. The first floor is given over to reception areas, with a vast through volume comprising the living room and kitchen opening onto the terrace and garden, a dining room and a laundry room. On the first floor, the private area comprises four bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Located in Fontenay-sous-Bois, the house is set in very pleasant surroundings, close to the Bois de Vincennes and Parc des Beaumonts. It is set in a quiet, residential neighborhood away from the city center, which offers schools and local shops. Vincennes station links the city to Paris in 9 minutes by RER (Châtelet station).
The townhouse concept revisited
This house is a fine reinterpretation of the town house, with a combination of brick and rendering on the facade that helps the house blend into its surroundings. The architecture creates a play of lines on the façade: the large vertical bay that marks the entrance to the house is combined with banded bays, whose horizontality is reinforced by the large terracotta slab cladding and the overhanging zinc roof. The house’s sleek silhouette is complemented by an extremely sober décor based on raw materials: concrete, wood and metal staircases and floors. It combines spaciousness and light.
Philippe Richard
From the late 19th century onwards, the popularity of the Bois de Vincennes and the loops of the Marne contributed to the construction of Anglo-Norman, Art Nouveau and Art Deco style holiday homes in Fontenay-sous-Bois. Today, architects are attempting to break with the traditional image of the suburban pavilion by building highly contemporary homes, such as Georges Bedrossian’s house in Le Perreux-sur-Marne (1986), a house on stilts facing the Marne.
Designed in 2005, this is the first house built by Philippe Richard. The architect has designed facilities and numerous buildings for the city of Paris.
The architecture of this house is inspired by Renzo Piano’s brick constructions, such as the extension to Ircam (Institut de Recherche Coordination Acoustique et Musique) in Paris in 1989, and the housing complex built on rue de Meaux in 1991. The architect has designed a new type of brick with an astonishing implementation: large terracotta panels attached to a steel structure.
The use of this type of brick appears to be a reference to the houses of the early twentieth century, which Philippe Richard reinterprets in a very contemporary way.
In addition, the architect refers to the architectural language of the Mouvement Moderne, with banded bays and white facades that evoke the architecture of purist villas built by Le Corbusier in the 1920s, such as the Villa Stein (1927) in Vaucresson.
The house was quickly published with its realization in Architectures à Vivre. It was opened to visitors on the occasion of the Journées de la Maison contemporaine.
