It’s a sunny morning in Normandy, and the light is beginning to peek through the trees, glimmering across the curved metal roof of Isabelle and Patrice Girard-Donnat’s home. Affectionately dubbed Le Kiosque—a nod to the open-walled structures that dot parks across France—the wood house has large sliding glass doors on either side, both of which are open today. As a breeze wafts in from the surrounding garden, the boundary between inside and out truly begins to fade.

After living for nearly two decades in and around Paris, the couple, who have two daughters, Léontine and Siloé, longed for this sort of setting. Patrice, a telecommunications engineer, and Isabelle, a set designer and props director, were ready for a reprieve from the hustle and bustle, or “Métro, Boulot, Dodo,” as the Parisians say—“commute, work, sleep.” After exploring their options in France and abroad, they settled on Caen in the country’s northwest. The city checked all their boxes: a manageable size, cultural institutions, good schools, and proximity to the ocean and stables, which would allow Isabelle to sail and the girls, then 10 and 12, to ride horses.

The couple opted for a rental at first, hoping they would find their dream home quickly. After a year of searching, however, they realized they might need to build rather than renovate, which is what they had done with their former townhouse in the Paris suburb of Saint-Ouen. So in 2018, when they visited a multistory stone house not far from the city center, expectations were low—and largely proven correct. The home, like much of the neighborhood, was bombed during WWII and rebuilt in the 1950s, and its multiple levels didn’t suit the couple’s lifestyle. But when they stepped into the property’s expansive back garden, which abuts a former limestone quarry, they were immediately smitten. “We went into the garden, and I think all four of us said, ‘We want to live here, not there,’” Isabelle says with a laugh, pointing to the stone house, which she and her husband now rent out.

“To be able to walk around the house and go outside from every room, even the bathroom, was something we really wanted.”
—Isabelle Girard-Donnat, resident

With the idea to build in the garden but no clear plans, the couple purchased the property and moved into the front house. Gradually, their ambition to build a home that would live with nature rather than just on it began to take shape. “You can imagine you’re in the country here, in the forest,” says Patrice. “We wanted to respect that.” They found a like-minded architect in Jean-Baptiste Barache of the Paris-based firm Arba-, whose work they saw at an architecture exhibition in 2018. Their brief for the house was straightforward: lots of light, transparency, and plenty of communal space. As Barache jokes, “Maybe the ideal house would just have a roof and a floor, without walls.”

The team at Arba- began to think about Le Kiosque from the top down rather than the ground up, and from there conceived the single-story home’s unique roof. Made of standing seam zinc for its malleability, the symmetrical structure overhangs the house and curves upward to a rounded central peak. A ribbon-like skylight runs through the center, bringing an additional burst of sunlight to the interior. The unusual shape addressed city height restrictions while also creating space for a lofted art studio.

Constructed primarily of larch wood, the house is built atop a base of corkscrew-like steel piles and concrete beams. It is slightly raised, for minimal disruption to the ground beneath, meaning it’s one big step up from the garden onto the narrow deck that lines the perimeter of the approximately 1,200-square-foot home. The layout is based on a central cross, with the living and dining areas forming the slightly wider bar and the kitchen and a staircase to the atelier forming the other. Three bedrooms, each with a small loft area for storage or another bed, and a bathroom fill the corners. All of them, including the bathroom, have an outward-facing glass door. Four striking curved beams traverse the interior of the house, just below a wood-clad ceiling.

“I love living here because you live with the weather. When there’s a lot of rain, you are with the rain, but you are inside, so it’s really comfortable.”
—Léontine Girard-donnat, resident

Early in the process of building Le Kiosque, Isabelle and Patrice knew they wanted to have a hands-on role and to really understand everything being used. “Natural materials are very important for us,” says Patrice. After the house was framed and the roof installed, they did a good deal of the work themselves—laying the parquet, sanding and finishing the ash floors section by section, and tiling the bathroom. Isabelle explains how they built the home’s texture-laden interior walls with hemp bricks and a lime mortar, which was coated with white clay. Once they were finished, she painted several other interior walls with a Swedish-style white paste-paint, which she made.

More than just homeowners, Isabelle and Patrice see themselves as stewards of a garden and home that will be there for many years to come. “The story is just starting,” says a smiling Patrice. While the family is now well settled in their new home, enjoying the light-filled communal space inside and out, they are embracing the fact that Le Kiosque will continue to be shaped by them and the nature surrounding it. As for its beginnings, maybe the germ of the idea was there all along. Up in the studio, Isabelle grabs a model that she built during university and recently found. To everyone’s surprise, it was a garden kiosk. The tiny structure now lives in the one they call home.

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Arba-

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