Montreal-based architecture firm Jean Verville architecte was commissioned to renovate this cottage for a couple of young professionals. The always interesting response by the practice was, according to its words "to orchestrate a sculptural experience with an architectural dimension".

Playing with a system of spaces, the proposal articulates the program of the house according to the image of its owners and according to new geometric relationships in space, where the development of its own architectural system requires its users to scrutinize their habits and question their daily life
Jean Verville architecte opted for the subtraction of floor areas in favor of spatial qualities, volumes, and interstices composing a domestic ecosystem of rows and vis-à-vis. MB project on its unifying mono-materiality, self-manifests with a constant variability of color shades, enlivened by the seasons and the natural light coming from the garden adjoining the living spaces.

"Associated with its urban context and the flow of dynamic interactions generated by its internal conditions, including the movements of users and their way of living, a rhythmic versatility stands out in contrast to the geometric rigor of the assemblage."


MB cottage renovation by Jean Verville architecte. Photograph by Maxime Brouillet.
 

Project description by Jean Verville architecte

From fluid promenade to pragmatic functionality, MB offers rehabilitation of a Montreal cottage orchestrating a sculptural experience with an architectural dimension. Interfering in the daily life of a couple of young professionals, a system, both simple and complex, multiply geometries interweavings and visual breakthroughs to reveal a home in the image of its owners.

Focusing as much on compactness as on organizational interrelationships, the development of the architectural system requires its users to scrutinize their habits, and question the needs related to their daily life. In this process of collaborative creation, Mathieu and Benjamin adopt the playful approach of Studio Jean Verville architects with enthusiasm, humor, and sensitivity in order to specify the character identity of the project.

Playing with positive and negative spaces, the proposal articulates a crystallization fragmenting the volumetric entity by a physical and visual permeability, altering the perceptions of dimensioning. Opting for the subtraction of floor areas in favor of spatial qualities, volumes and interstices compose a domestic ecosystem of rows and vis-à-vis. Livened up by the constant variability of color shades, enlivened by the seasons and the natural light coming from the garden adjoining the living space, the MB project manifests the expression of these external parameters on its unifying monomateriality. Associated with its urban context and the flow of dynamic interactions generated by its internal conditions, including the movements of users and their way of living, a rhythmic versatility stands out in contrast to the geometric rigor of the assemblage.

Beyond the amalgamation of domestic functions, MB proposes an intervention multiplying interrelationships to enhance the movement through a parcours revealing its spatial polysemy. From archetype to abstraction, space is transformed. From an organizational matrix to a discovery game, MB presents a place participating in the active life of its neighborhood, while generating an enveloping family haunt.

More information

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Architects
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Jean Verville architecte. Lead architect.- Jean Verville.
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Design team Equipo de proyecto
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Tania Paula Garza Rico, architect (studio director), France Goneau (artistic advisor), François Bodlet, architect, Rémi St-Pierre, architect, Samuel Landry, MA architecture, Camille Asselin, MA architecture, Jacob Éthier, MA architecture candidate, Bahia Burias, MA architecture candidate, Alexandre Meloche, MA architecture.
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Collaborators
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Digital Collages.- Studio Jean Verville architectes.
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Client
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Benjamin Boller et Mathieu Denécheau.
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Contractor
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Le Pierre Rénovation.
Cabinet maker CST inc..- Steeve Tousignant.
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Area
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140 m².
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Dates
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Year(s) of construction.- 2019-22.
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Photography
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Studio Jean Verville architectes consists of a multidisciplinary team working under the direction of architect Tania Paula Garza Rico. The complementary skills of team members contribute to the variability of the Studio's output. Currently, the team is working on the development of a 3,000 m2 dental complex, a research and innovation center for Cannabis, personalized houses and apartments, a forest castle, and an immersive architectural installation for an international public art festival.

Jean Verville. Architect and professor at the School of Architecture at Laval University, Jean Verville draws upon play, humor, and self-mockery in his professional practice, as well as in his teaching approach. A playful creator, it is with apparent lightness and casualness that he presents his thoughts on relationships with domestic space, as well as on the role and capacity of architecture to transform everyday life.

Verville observes the impacts of popular culture with amusement,  inviting individual appropriations that underline the attributes and omnipresence of architectural space. Celebrating the multiplicity of perceptions, his deliberately imperfect digital collages shape baroque fantasies where the discernment between architecture and personal imagination is disputed in order to evoke traces of childhood, including doubt about the veracity of images and the plausible banality of ordinary life.

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Published on: April 2, 2022
Cite: "Fluidity of space and pragmatic functionality. MB cottage renovation by Jean Verville architecte " METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/fluidity-space-and-pragmatic-functionality-mb-cottage-renovation-jean-verville-architecte> ISSN 1139-6415
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