Samir Alaoui Architectes
Conversion of a workers’ villa from the 1940s
best architects 23
renovation and addition
Place
Lausanne, Switzerland
Studio
Photos
Tonatiuh Ambrosetti
Description
The project is a
conversion of a workers’ villa from the 1940s, part of a protected complex of
identical houses built for national railway company workers. The house
originally had one habitable floor and a lower level consisting of a cellar and
a garage. The two existing floors can be accessed from the outside. The
intervention created a bedroom and a studio on the lower level, coupled with a
new entrance space that reorganises the vertical circulation and gives access
to both levels of the house. In order to achieve the necessary height for the new
living spaces, the floor of the lower level had to be excavated. Multiple
windows were added and existing windows enlarged. The difference in height
gained in both the bedroom and studio is marked by a finish of sand-wash
concrete, so as to retain traces of the original level. The finishes of the new
floor spaces as well as those of the entrance were also executed in sand-wash
concrete. In contrast to the concrete finish chosen for the floor and the lower
part of the walls in the bedroom and studio, the entrance space was made from
wood frames. Its burnt wood façades stand out from the original volume of the
house.