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CAPO
By : AtelierCarle
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 16th edition
Discipline : Architecture
Categories : Residential Building / Private House > 2 000 pi2 (> 185 m2) : Gold Certification
The project CAPO, located not far from Baie Saint-Paul in the Charlevoix region of Quebec, proposes an architectural approach that privileges the body’s movement in space. The residence roots itself in the site’s specific quality: a rocky cliff, perilous and at the limits of habitability. The cliff’s abrupt slope, dangerous and unstable, offered an opportunity to rethink the design process and to introduce a critical dimension, despite the context of the residential commission, a deepening of our approach to the project.
In contrast to an approach based on programmatic apriorism, the conceptual framework focuses on the sensorial components of the body in space. Developed from the very outset in section, the project is designed above all according to a pre-existing organic path of circulation on the perilous site, initiating a conceptual logic of pathways rather than an arrangement of rooms derived from programmatic components. The anchoring of the spaces is done all along this layout, favoring the constant movement of the user from one level to another according to a succession of stairs.
The project is thus fragmented into living areas, of varied shapes and orientations, maintaining a certain reciprocity with the surrounding ground while positioning the large panoramic view on the river as one of the points of interest of the site.
The implementation of the project on the site was done in a progressive and delicate way thanks to the use of insulating formworks allowing a sequence of successive pours. Given the difficulty of appropriating this site where no trees could be cut down, the choice of this construction technique ensured that the landscape characteristics were maintained both immediately after construction and over time. Conceived almost as a succession of small hills cascading down the cliff, the resulting volumetry of the circulation layout refers to the great landscape of the Charlevoix coast, where the organicity of the rural constructions of the last century is superimposed on the dizzying rusticity of the territory.
Collaboration
Manufacturer - Distributor : Atelier du bois David Gilbert
