On a rather narrow plot, this townhouse stretches over 4 spatially diverse floors.

A double-height space penetrates through the depth of the building and links the street level to the garden which is one level below.

Entrance, garage, office and technical space thus hover over kitchen and living space, set in what is typically considered the basement.

The lower floor is an open space on which everyday domestic equipment merely floats like archipelagos: a dining table, a kitchen island, a sofa and the landing of the stairs. All the other furniture is camouflaged into a jet-black built-in furniture wall.

While to the back the terrasse develops as an extension of the living space and is in relation to a humble garden, to the street a maximum of natural soil is kept in place in the shape of a terraced, stepping-down landscape. In fine, a lush diverse landscape will boast comestible herbs as much as flowers and trees and thus help to regulate the micro-climate of the neighbourhood 

If the structure of the house is in reinforced concrete, which is exposed where possible, the ground floor displays the complementary structure of a massive H-beam frame, keeping the garage afloat.

Like a screw, circular stairs bind the 4 floors and their very different functional and spatial conditions. It is the ever-changing constant of this townhouse. 

On the first floor, four large generic sleeping rooms, a bathroom and laundry occupy the plot’s maximal buildable capacity. It is the clients’ “spatial resilience capacity” for future family development or intergenerational cohabitation.

To the street, the cantilever of this floor becomes a porch for the entrance and a canopy for the terrace in the back.

A double-height opening lets the light penetrate from the last level to the middle of this deep floor where the bathroom sits.

On the last floor, a recessed glazed pavilion hosts the parental suite and its east and west terraces.

Clad in polished aluminum panels, the three overground volumes frame the street- and garden-level void in black glass, and reflect the chromatic variety of its surroundings while stating its diverging domestic attitude.

images by Ludmilla Cerveny