Floating House

A studio for resident artists and authors invited by the Cneai, national contemporary art center for publication, realized together with architects Jean-Marie Finot and Denis Daversin. The simple lines of the structure are a pragmatic and poetic answer to a thin budget. An aluminum skin enveloped by a wooden trellis delimits the long alcove on the rectangular platform (23x5m). On 110m2, life and work are articulated around different spaces. Large flower pots on the terraces are the starting points of creepers that should invade the walls and roof. Plants will recover the whole, thus integrating the building within the landscape of the shores and providing further intimacy to the residents. Moored to the impressionists’ island in Chatou, the house softly sways to the rhythm of the Seine’s swirls. From inside the studio, the picturesque landscape that inspired Renoir’s “Déjeuner des canotiers”, 1881, is visible everywhere, blurred by the mirroring surface of the river.