2012

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Maison de l'Ecriture

The cabin, suspended from the canopy above the garden adjacent to library is itself envisaged as a series of suspended volumes housed within a supporting frame and takes inspiration from the cabinet associated with a Japanese tea ceremony. Each volume slips one inside the other, the whole encompassed by a protective, enclosing canopy or roof. It offers a haven from the world outside, a place apart both private and secluded. A protective casket, its tranquil domestic interior, lit largely by zenithal light, seeks a quiet, peaceful atmosphere conducive to focus and concentration. Entrance is across a short lightweight bridge that spans from the existing external walkway, adjacent to an external staircase. One arrives into the living room at one end. The kitchen is housed within a niche closed away behind folding doors while on the opposite wall a bed for guests is stored within the depth of the wall. Light spills onto the roof from the shaded openings above.

The writer can descent deeper into the cabin or ascend to the small external terrace. Here one will find the places of writing, placed one above the other. At the lowest level the floor extends to become a writing surface. In this, the darkest room, also for sleeping, borrowed light arrives through a shaft positioned overhead that punctures the upper writing space. Elsewhere, light spills across the floor from openings such as the one located beneath the table or through shuttered clerestorey windows. There are oblique views to the garden and canopy. The floor lifts in part to provide local ventilation, the lid doubling as a lectern for the desk. Perhaps the writer works here at night or during the warm days of summer to avoid the obvious attractions of the external world.

To arrive in the illuminated space above one ventures up to the terrace via the external steps located off of the living room. In this way one can get up and go to work and feel the air on their skin, however briefly, to avoid the rain. Here the light shaft from below extends to form a writing surface and elsewhere light enters moderated through the assembled shelves of books. Within this writer’s hut while still secluded, one can catch glimpses of the canopy, sit on the terrace and read, participate discretely in the life of the ensemble. At night as the light fades the outside world disappears and the writer remains surrounded be a wall of books.