BETILLON & FREYERMUTH ARCHITECTS . photos: © Maxime Delvaux
The office claims no radicality in his work. The radicality asks for a strength of persuasion that we do not pretend to have. We do not have this talent. Our experience showed us that we do not go to the end of our projects if we persist in a too radical approach, especially with a private clientele. Therefore, with this type of customers, projects rarely go to the end. We could say that we are rather opportunists and analysts. We try to figure out where to put our energy.
On this project, our clients asked us to work with brick. At the same time, by using this material, we knew that the project would be well-received by Toulouse city council. Actually, at first, we tried hard to propose a concrete building but we quickly understood that we would not get there with those clients. In Toulouse, architects do not really enjoy brick. They are a little fed up to see it everywhere. You know, in my village in the mountains, only tourists like snow as they go skiing. People that live there hate it !
Thus, we agreed to work with this material and, for some budgetary reasons, we opted for a brick cladding. We tried to use this constraint in the most clever way. We gave the facades some thickness, which allows to hide brick edges. In this way, the facade is more than just a plane surface, it becomes a volume. That is what emerges from this interesting project, this travel, this small but essential transformation which makes the project and also signs the building. This thickness becomes livable: we can take advantage of it to put plants, tables or bathe in the sun.
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Architects: BETILLON & FREYERMUTH ARCHITECTS
Project: 4 housing units
Clients: Private
Location: Toulouse (31)
Square: 300m2
Copyright photos: Maxime Delvaux
