Villas – PL SI by atelier Stéphane Fernandez

The villas are part of the landscape, of an abundant nature with foliage and scents overwhelmed by the light. Nestled on a wooded hill, this inhabited limestone spur emerges; floating. Houses derive their strength from the exhilarating confrontation with this powerful and sensitive nature.

From Villa Rotonda they shoot geometry and cardinal orientations. Material, the soft and fresh mineral Provence, they reveal their power. From the ground, concrete emerges like a natural rock in the middle of a landscape planted with several thousand endemic subjects.

Beyond an inhabited place, the villas speak of the territory, geography and a tradition, Provence; that of Giono, arid, difficult to access, discreet and discovered to be generous. Simplicity, they carry the rustic character of 18th century bastides century, nestled in the scrubland.

The evidence of the architectural relationship with the body and the climate. The simple and obvious constructive intelligence of the oldest constructions. The project proposes three superimposed relationships to the territory.

The house from the ground, lit by skylight, dark, dug into the depth of the ground. A house of the landscape made of wide framing initiated by the structure eliminating the horizontal limit between the inside and the outside.

A house in the sky centered on a patio, a vertical link like Roman villas, creates an indescribable relationship in perpetual change with clouds, wind and rain. Matter is a tool for understanding the landscape. Silky and soft site concrete, the touch reveals its complexity ranging from gray to delicate white.

The natural stone that covers the floors is softened and reflects shadows and light passing through plants. The wood, sanded oak, with an amber color, releases its scent woody and is found in the elements in first carnal contact with Man.

The work of the material thickens the relationship we have with the atmosphere and the passage of time. Thus mosses, wear, weathering are part of this tectonic force which thus binds Man to his territory by evoking here the ancient rocks of the mountain of Sainte Victoire immortalized by the sensitive eye of the painter. Source by atelier Stéphane Fernandez.