Noue Studio reimagines a 1983 single-storey villa, centering the renovation on a simple yet transformative swap: relocating the kitchen and the bedroom. This switch reshapes how light, privacy, and daily activities flow through the house, using the existing structure as a springboard rather than a barrier. By emphasizing recalibration over expansion, the redesign focuses on spatial circulation as the core of the new layout.
Swapping the kitchen with the bedroom serves as the subtle powerhouse behind the renovation. This move reorganizes the original layout without disrupting the villa’s footprint, offering a fresh perspective from entry to living spaces through a strategically positioned opening.
The newly located kitchen, adjacent to the living room, evolves into a communal hub rather than a mere service area. This integration fosters interaction, making everyday activities more inclusive, and moves beyond the typical open-plan setup of contemporary renovations by sticking closely to the swap’s logic.
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The living room’s expanded openings integrate the indoors with the garden, using light and landscape as active components within the design. This cohesion is achieved not merely through visuals but through structural enhancements, embodying a seamless connection between interior and exterior.
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Conversely, the bathroom design embraces privacy through a varied layout, balancing the openness of shared spaces. This contrast underscores the renovation’s theme of strategic exposure levels across the house.
Material selections maintain a dialogue with the building’s past, favoring natural, durable elements. Existing wooden ceilings receive restoration and new coatings, harmonizing with solid ash and oak joinery, marking the modern interventions.
Lime plaster walls enhance the rooms with subtlety, allowing the ceiling and joinery to shine. Meanwhile, the rammed earth fireplace commands attention as a central feature, its robust design enhancing the living space’s character.
Taking cues from Noue Studio’s prior modernist renovation in Fribourg, the villa appeals to the existing structure, letting it guide the transformation. This project applies similar principles to a suburban, single-storey format, reflecting a thoughtful adaptation rather than a complete overhaul.
At the heart of this renovation is the pivotal room swap. This seemingly modest change underpins the entire redesign, linking enlarged openings, a nuanced bathroom, and the striking fireplace into a cohesive narrative of the villa’s reinvention.
Source: urdesignmag.com