Villa Akila
Location: Bay of Talloires, Lake Annecy, France
Architect:
Carole & Fabrice Gibert
Client: Private
Material: concrete, stone, wood
Site area: 1710m2
Built area: 340m2
Studio: ARCHIDOMO
Furniture: KETTAL
Photographer: Studio Erick Saillet
Story:
Text provided by the architects:
ARCHITECTURAL CASCADE FOR A FULL ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRATION.
For their House-Agency, Carole and Fabrice GIBERT, ARCHIDOMO’’s founders have chosen to embrace an exceptional environment. The place is overlooking the « Baie de Talloires » and the Annecy lake facing a unique panorama and sunshine. Through a set of volumes (in cascades), on three levels, the villa is anchored in the slope. Its design invites you to a dream from the entrance to the discovery of many increasingly vertiginous point of view.
- Masonry base huddled in the garden landscape
- Ground-floor coated of oversized concrete earthenwares, going along with the outside terraces
- Upstairs (at the top floor), 3 oaks blocks cantilevered the facade, reals interior balconies overlooking the lake.
Widely glazed to give itself to the landscape, this house affirms the couple’s architectural predilections.
Natural and fluid navigation between living spaces, outside/inside, work/relaxation, reception/intimacy…
It is the architecture itself that picks you up and escort you, seamlessly, from one living space to another. A 90 degrees wall marks the entrance and leads you to the reception where incredible and aerial stairs, made of metal and oak, awaits you.
At the end of the stairs, you enter the main living room with a bird’s-eye view and in full light.
Then comes a series of reception rooms.
A first small living area is mirroring an outside terrace, protected by one of the top cantilevered blocks of the upper level. A meeting room lets you guess the landscape through vertical windows.
Then, as trust is gradually created, more intimate spaces open up to you. The kitchen brings you over large oak and inox central island, ideal to share a drink. Nothing is obtrusive: the functional space is uncluttered with high black and matt wall cupboards, without handles.
In the dining area, a mural sculpture brings its warm vibrations of brights colors, responding to the lake.
Then, the four-sided cathedral ceiling of the living room takes place, opening to all the frames of the landscape. The interior design mirror the horizons. A monolith extends the fireplace like a marble painting with blue-grey shades of "lake under the rain".
It resonates with a decorative choice of blue and green, plant, and lake tones.
If you take a step higher, you will discover even more life perspectives. You will reach the third level. The first overhang comes out of the facade. The offices of Carole and Fabrice Gibert are sitting there. Place of inspiration with the breathtaking environmental show.
Second and third overhangs. The secrets of two intimate suites. The orientation of beds maintains a very private relationship with the lake and mountains.
The bathrooms between the view of the outside and confidential discretion: a complex of sun breaker, an oak louvered facade… Finally, at the very end of the floor, the last terrace extends the master suite.
This villa also shows the couple's mastery of interior design and decoration which is the logical extension to the architectural design. Simple and noble materials such as oak and concrete interact from outside to inside. In turn, parquet flooring, outside cladding, underside cladding, and partition wall for one; wall or floor covering and cladding, inside or outside for the other. Despite this continuity, each space is sequenced and closely linked structurally to the architecture of the villa. The terraces extend each living room to offer itself, like a balcony on the landscape.
Both exterior and interior lighting mark the directional lines of the building, either vertical or horizontal. Nothing is excessive. The villa extends on a human scale as ostentation is not the norm at ARCHIDOMO.
The selection of the furniture reflects the architects’ culture always in search of timelessness, far from the phenomena of fashion. Seating by Antonio Citterio, furniture by Le Corbusier, kitchen by Piero Lissoni, objects by the Eames couple or by Alvar Aalto. The references are numerous. Many elements refer to Patricia Urquiola, a talented architect-designer because the house is also the mark of a female architect.
In this peaceful and airy atmosphere, it will undoubtedly be difficult for you to come down from the Archidomo’s home showroom to get back to real earth…
