Located in the heart of one of the most typical and charming villages of the valley of Bagnes, Wallis, Switzerland, this house originally built in the XIXth century suffered from a serious lack of maintenance. It presented a typical typology with a concrete part on the back and a wooden part on the front that had to be preserved during the transformation process.
Its basement previously used for the storage of foodstuff was built directly on the rocks and the inside spaces were lacking of light and were very partitioned. The new plan groups the rooms and the bathrooms on the north in order to offer wide, open and bright living spaces on the south facing the garden and the amazing views on the mountains.
The local regulations forbidding the dismounting of the facades, and the proximity with the neighbour houses forced the various contractors working on the construction to find solutions to work in such a narrow area. The existing facades were then sandblasted in order to restore their warmth and remove the numerous layers of painting added over the years, and the new parts were built with heated and snatched larch wood that smoothly fits with the old one.
Wooden sliding shutters were added on the plastered parts of the facades to liven them up and also to break the symmetry. The latter also echo the south facade by using the same system of vertical wooden strips than on the main balcony giving a unified aspect to the house.
The furniture were planned to the smallest details and custom fit in order to take advantage of every space available in the 45 m2 of the floorplan.
