Architecture

Villa L'Intervalle

Between two rooms, there is a third thing.

The interval is the space between rooms: a threshold of shade before the light, a stair lit through the screen, a corridor where you pause. Usually these are places you only pass through. Here each one is given a use, a light and a relation to the outside.

On the street, the façade is solid; upstairs, the terracotta screen holds the light and stops the gaze. On the garden side, the ground floor opens level with the garden. The basement takes daylight from sunken courts and light wells.

The wall becomes a place.It is thick. It makes shade, holds a seat, a niche, a frame.
What is not framed disappears.Every opening aims at something: a piece of sky, a tree, a horizon.
The house reveals itself in sequences.Successive thresholds slow the step.
The basement is inhabited.Light comes down through the screens, the sunken courts and the light wells.

Location: Marrakech
Programme: Private house, two storeys over a basement
Material: Earth, terracotta screens
Status: Ongoing project
Credits: Renderings: Corona.

Garden façade of the villa: glazed ground floor opening onto the terrace, terracotta screens upstairs — **Rendering.** The garden façade. The ground floor opens level with the garden; upstairs, the screen filters the bedrooms.

Street façade of the villa, closed, terracotta screen across the full upper storey — **Rendering.** The street façade, the most closed: it protects. The screen holds the light.

Stair beside a screen and a light well — **Rendering.** The stair. The light arrives before the room you are heading to.

Upper corridor, chequered light on the floor — **Rendering.** The upper corridor. It does not only lead somewhere: it is already a place.

Desk in the basement, beneath the stair, in front of the terracotta screen that comes down to the floor — **Rendering.** The desk, in the basement, beneath the stair. The client did not want a dedicated room. The screen comes down to the floor: light comes in, and there is a place to work undisturbed.

Covered balcony of the main bedroom facing the Atlas — **Rendering.** The main bedroom balcony. Being outside, head covered, facing the Atlas.

Drawings

Ground floor plan of the villa, articulated volumes, pool and garden — **Plan.** The ground floor. Articulated volumes and, between them, room to breathe.

Long section of the villa: basement, ground floor, upper floor — **Section.** Three levels, three relations to the ground: the buried basement, the ground floor level with the garden, the bedrooms above.