In winter, the wind averages 20 miles an hour in Cayeux-sur-Mer, a small seaside resort town in northern France that fronts a stretch of beach near Baie de Somme. Come summer, it lightens up a little but remains steady enough to keep the kite surfers happy.

The breezes were top of mind for Paris-based couple Olivier Panchot, a filmmaker, and Marie Becker, an antidiscrimination consultant, when they planned the construction of their holiday home on a beachfront plot of land they bought 20 years ago. Working with architects Jean-Baptiste Barache and Sihem Lamine of Paris firm Arba, they created a box-shaped structure that, with a lofted plan and a walled-in garden, lets in sun while providing privacy and protection from gusts.

“Thinking of how we wanted to live in this space, we liked the idea of a garden inside [the perimeter] so we could easily move between the exterior and interior, in summer especially,” says Olivier, manning the stove in his happy place, the kitchen, which is outfitted with wooden cabinetry he constructed. It’s part of an open-plan living area, with a built-in sofa and daybed across from a large window that faces the ocean and stretches up to the lofted second level. Up a staircase that doubles as shelving and storage are a bathroom and three near-identical modestly sized bedrooms. Olivier’s kids from a previous marriage sometimes stay over, and the couple’s daughter, Lou, makes regular trips here with her parents.

From the kitchen, on the southern side of the house, an immense wood-framed slider with glass panels opens onto the enclosed garden, which takes on the lushness of a jungle in summer. The couple planted bamboo, Tasmanian ferns, and climbing clematis, already in flower on the cusp of spring when we visited. The wooden patio that borders the garden is a sun-trap in the mornings and where Marie enjoys her first coffee of the day.

The alfresco area is sizable, taking up more than one-third of the home’s 970-square-foot plan. “It was a brave choice on Marie and Olivier’s part to agree to have nearly half their house outside. They didn’t try to optimize it but rather focused on finding the right feeling,” says Barache. “So we worked on the idea of outdoor living spaces, of an envelope that delineates both the heated space and garden, of a house where people, rain, and plants can live together.”

“We have the sun in the garden in the morning, and then it comes around the house at the end of the day. There’s always sun on the house—it’s always light.”
—Olivier Panchot, resident

Nature feels ever-present inside, too; this is where Olivier’s directorial eye came in. Carefully placed windows and openings mapped out on each of the four facades create distinct viewpoints, framing living images “just like in a film,” he says. They reveal vistas of the treetops behind while obscuring a neighbor’s residence, the swell of the dune and tufts of marram grass from the living area, and the sea from the upstairs bedrooms. As the sun revolves around the house, it casts rectangular shadows that dance across the wooden floorboards outside. “I love these openings and the calm—Paris is a noisy city,” says Marie. “But here we hear the sea. There’s wind.… We feel nature all around us.”

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Jean-Baptiste Barache and Sihem Lamine, arba-

Builder: Joly&Co

Structural Engineering: Boulland

Civil Engineering: Betebat

Electrical Engineering and Plumbing: A&R

Heating Appliances: Cheminées Création

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Slices in This Compact Cabin in Northern France Frame the Coast Like a Camera