Mountain House
Gosh, we know. The home is in France, but we couldn’t help ourselves. We think this home would look perfectly natural set just outside of Asheville. From the clean lines to the rustic simplicity, it’s a home for all seasons. Of course, it looks especially home when winter has set in.
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In this highly preserved Alpine valley, stringent architectural guidelines allow for very little freedom of architectural expression. Everything from building height/width ratio to roof slope, via building material and window sizes are strictly controlled to enforce what is locally perceived as patrimony protection but de facto creating camp architecture, endlessly mimicking traditional mountain homes.
In order to circumvent these limitations we took great care in analyzing local historical buildings so as to understand what their forms accomplished functionally and how they shaped the local architectural culture. We then integrated this information into our design, simply avoiding all artificial and/or obsolete elements while making sure that the building was entirely code compliant.