BUREAU

Description

Interior architecture is the focus of Mr Barrett’s House; everything has been developed from within. There is a clear logic to focus on the interior when architecture faces spaces of intimacy, places where the interaction and complexity of human relationships take place in a private environment. Thus, this project is about the interior. The project took this criterion as a starting point to develop the concept and construction. An old garage – split into a garage basement and a small first floor apartment – has been completely gutted and conceived from the inside. The upper wooden chalet was entirely lifted, placed on the side of the actual building and then reinforced and re-structured. Only thereafter, was it replaced above the basement. The two floors are spatially linked through a series of relatively complex sections that create a richness of perception and a feeling of space within the small volume. New birchwood cladding is inserted into the volume, which is composed of two floors. Spatial connections are favoured, enhanced in a subtle way to produce a multiplicity of perspectives. The house is a dynamic actor for future inhabitants. The layered character of this building is a given. Its history and nature are made from successive layers that modulate its life, an ever-changing process that accepts time.