La Charbonnière

Located on the mountainside in the heart of a large real estate development project, the site of this residence essentially had been stripped by the developer to promote views of the St. Lawrence River and thus stimulate sales of the project lots.

Paradoxically, this destructured the natural landscape, rendering appropriation of the site for residential purposes more complex, given the overexposure of the land. The resulting monumentality of the landscape is as spectacular as it is difficult to appropriate on a residential scale. That is why the project attempts to fit into this landscape, while seeking a relationship it can offer in a context of domesticity. Curiously, this situation is not unrelated to the long tradition of settlement in the Charlevoix region (Québec), characterized by the modest scale of the dwellings set against the immensity of the St. Lawrence River and the rolling landscape.

“La Charbonnière” was designed around this problem of “fitting” into the landscape, a consideration that is both formal and cultural. We believe the mode of implementation of the region’s traditional rural complexes has translated the rustic culture of yesteryear, which has almost disappeared today. The subtlety with which the villagers appropriated their territory according to a precise arrangement of small volumes of homes or outbuildings, has today been supplanted by uniform deployment of a residential typology that is much more suburban than rustic.

The project plan plots an interior yard fronting on the St. Lawrence River, like an arm that hugs
and protects the inhabitants from the immensity of the landscape. The exterior volumetry is
abstract and intriguing. It emerges from the soil, like a sculptural object, facing the river’s
monumentality. The scale is ambiguous, in the image of the surrounding landscape. The charred
cedar walls, produced by the “shou-sugi-ban” technique are free of windows on the side facing
the road and contribute to the strangeness of this form, which divides the landscape without
imposing itself.

The deployment of the spaces hugs the contours of the site, clearing two habitable storeys but
maintaining direct access at ground level over the entire perimeter. This allows direct
appropriation of the outdoor site while allowing some privacy for the users. The meal preparation
spaces are vast and constitute the residence’s living centre, opening onto the inner yard. The
living room is designed like a contemplative retreat, opening onto the riverscape. In the same
spirit, a dry sauna, largely opening onto the yard, is also offered as a place of relaxation in the
heart of the dwelling, facing the St. Lawrence.

The esthetics of the indoor spaces have a rustic stamp. The materiality refers to our roots, more
rustic than modernist, closer to the earth. Its internal organization is organic, like our beautiful
rural homes designed without an architect...