Flying Box Villa

Location: Orgères, France

Client: Private

Material: Container

Completion date: 2015

Site area: 160m²

Built area: 125m²

Photography: 2A Design / Josué Gillet

Story:

 Text provided by the architects:

2A Design has recently completed a surprisingly small and low-cost house on a tiny plot, in a rural village next to Rennes (France).

How to fit such a program on a so small parcel of land located 1.50m above the street?

How could we reduce the cost and the building period of the project? The budget for this construction is as small as the building plot! The program is as complex as the configuration of the parcel!

In order to give the best response to the client, 2A Design chooses to build this house with shipping containers (B3 Ecodesign concept). The house has been prefabricated in a factory then moved on to the site and achieved in approximately three months. The container dimensions fit exactly with the buildable zone of the plot!

The project is sliced into 3 levels. Each level is a 100sqm area. The superposition of those different sequences shapes the house. Now we are able on this little plot to organize a complete program of the desired urban villa.

The first level, the ground one, is more technical: one parking zone for two cars, the covered entrance, and the technical rooms; a sewing studio and laundry.

The shared life stands on the first level, the garden one. We can find there a comfortable living room, the main room of the house.

The main volume of the house presents two glass facades. 

The first face is above the street. The house takes part in the life of the street.

The other face, looking at the small garden, is completely transparent too.

By its small dimensions, the garden looks like a patio, a private room without a ceiling, open to the sky. We are there hidden from the wind and the views from the neighborhood.

You can then enjoy the patio for a comfortable chilling session!

The last level is another intimate space. The parental room is widely opened on a large roof terrasse. This space is a kind of solarium, maybe the most qualitative place of the house. From there, you can enjoy a view from the village to the natural landscape of the country. Giving back the roof of the villa to its inhabitants is the only way to propose large outdoor spaces on a so small plot. The terrasse is although planted with trees. We forget then that the house doesn't have a real garden.