Quiet House by ARTELABO

With “Quiet House”, the French architecture firm ARTELABO responds to a very particular context, a village in southern France. Nadine Chambon Fayard and Laurent Fayard crafted a building surrounded by a winery, a parking lot and subject to prevailing winds so it only opens up to the valley that offers breathtaking views.


A peaceful home, the result of the design work of ARTELABO n Gignac, a municipality in the Hérault department, in the Occitania region of southern France. The architects Nadine Chambon Fayard and Laurent Fayard made bold, decisive design decisions to guarantee privacy, light and views to a building located on a lot with some significant intrusive elements: an operating winery to the west, the parking lot of the neighbour to the east, along with the access road, the main road to the south and even exposure to prevailing winds in the zone due to the fact that it is north facing.
The white building has a regular, simple composition and a vernacular material language with regard to masonry, plaster and roof tiles, all of which hides a whole world inside. ARTELABO has enclosed a sequence of four volumes based on a 3-metre wide and 4-metre deep grid within the outer walls. The regular pattern of the overall geometry under sloping roofs organises four courtyards in the dwelling that bring in light and provide a livable outdoor area.
The movement of the interiors and the closed block of the exterior contrast to make “Quiet House” stand out, precisely because it is closed off from the surrounding residential fabric.
Every room is connected to one or more courtyards, underscoring the dialogue with the protected outdoor areas, an idea also manifested in the motifs of the white “mashrabiyya” style grid, which gives the home a Mediterranean feel.
Quiet House by ARTELABO shows how skilled design in a difficult context where the desire for intimacy and privacy is expressed through harmonious and at the same time sustainable architectural solutions, without having to abandon a preferential relationship with daylight and landscape.

Christiane Bürklein

Project: ARTELABO
Location: Gignac, France
Year: 2016
Images: © Marie-Caroline Lucart
Thanks to v2com