Prévessin-Moëns, France

This project is a small residential house designed to be built next to the client’s parents’ house in Prevessin-Moens, Ain in France near Switzerland’s border and the Geneva airport. The site is located in a quiet residential area with trees, landscapes, and mountain views. In 2011 Hosoya Schaefer were commissioned to design a house where the client could live independently in a light and open structure that nevertheless provides privacy from her parents’ house.

Upon visiting the site, Hosoya Schaefer were most impressed by the garden that was the center of the family’s activities. Thus, when building a new house in this garden, two small attached buildings were proposed in order to minimize the volume of the house. The house consists of two skewed boxes that intersect one another, branching out from each other like a node. This node forms a central pathway from which the different spaces of the house stem. The house has also been designed to provide views of nature, of the gardens and trees, from anywhere in the interior. The outdoor space of one volume of the house is thus oriented to provide a view of the mountain and to allow easy access to the shared south garden. The exterior of the house negotiates between an open façade toward the south connecting these views and a closed façade to the north providing privacy.