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Architects: RVL architects
- Area: 130 m²
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Photographs:Gaelle Le Boulicot, Clément Darrasse
Text description provided by the architects. The site is an old orchard of a house built in the 1960s alongside a quiet street located in an old borough that has become residential, at the immediate outskirts of Tours city. The ground is encircled on three on its sides (east, north, south) by very close houses. The blocked outlook entails the obligation to comply with the 3 m separating limits. The east-west aspect of the long strip of ground is perpendicular to the street. On the west side sits a shed in its original shape. On the east side, running from the street, an access-path skirts the existing house and its back garden, then spreads on 60 m X 15.5m with on one side, to the north, a bulky middle-class, twentieth century house built out of micaceous chalk and on the other, to the south, a more recent masonry. The house will be erected on the last third of the ground Thus releasing, in front of the house, a vast planted surface made up of existing fruit trees, it will function like a buffer zone with the surrounding houses. On the back, a true external “room” is created, more private and hidden from the eyes of the neighbours. The dominant winds blow from the west, and very occasionally from the north, is comparatively strong on the upper floor because of the headland position of the site.
