Former Bordeaux Garage Makes Chic Micro Maison
Photographer Jérémie Buchholtz wanted to buy a home in Bordeaux, but there was a dearth of desirable properties in his modest price range. When he found an unused, corrugated-steel-sided 485 sq ft back-alley garage for €80K, he decided to call on friend and architect Matthieu de Marien to see what they could do. Together, they converted the sorry garage into a gorgeous retreat with tons of light and function and even its own 129 sq ft private patio.
Like the East Village loft by Jordan Parnass or the Spiritual Mode living thingy, the Bordeaux space relies on a freestanding structure that houses the bathroom, sleeping loft and storage rather than containing these things in walled-off rooms and closets. These structures are ideal for raw, open spaces, and like they mention in the video, they keep all the functional parts of the house compact, creating an open feel in the rest of the small space. They also make good use vertical space–important here because they could not build higher than one story due to building code preserving the historic integrity of the neighborhood.
Creative adaptation of existing structures is a vitally important topic in looking at the future of architecture. While it’s cool to build amazing new houses, most of the homes of the future are already here; some, like this one, have been around for hundreds of years.
Via Fair Companies
images via Matthieu de Marien