In the centre of Ehnen, between the Moselle and the traces of a productive past, two typologies coexist: a former notary’s office and a wine-growing barn. The project neither seeks to merge nor to hierarchize them, but to activate their coexistence within a single envelope.
A compact timber volume is inserted as a domestic infrastructure. It concentrates the technical functions and vertical circulation, freeing a continuous space around it. Placed against the existing party wall, it organizes without erasing, stabilizes without fixing.
The former notary’s office is recalibrated into a kitchen and dining area, aligned with the rhythm of the existing openings, subtly upgraded.
Upstairs, the bedrooms—accessed through reused doors—extend a logic of transformation rather than preservation.
An incision cuts through the load-bearing wall that once separated the two parts. This passage, tinted green, acts as a threshold: it compresses before opening into a vast volume ranging from 4 to 8 metres in height. The roof structure becomes manifest, reinforced yet left exposed.
The openings are maintained, with one exception: a new square bay, almost autonomous, captures the vineyard landscape and condenses it into a singular image.
On the exterior, the local render is reinterpreted through a contemporary lens, while the stone surrounds, stripped and hydro-cleaned, re-emerge as reactivated traces.
The house does not restore; it negotiates with an existing condition that becomes an active resource.
