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Location: Cap à L’Aigle, Québec, Canada
Year of completion: June 2016
Area: 225 m2 / 2 425 ft2
Architect: Alain Carle Architecte
Project manager: Alexandre Lemoyne
MATERIALS/
CONTRACTORS
Contractor: Demonfort
Matérials: Wood and stell
Millwork: Demonfort
Flooring: Demonfort
Windows and doors: Alumilex
Exterior cladding: Charred cedar (“Shou-sugi-ban” technic)
Photo credit: James Brittain Photography

This is a far look at the house with dark exterior walls that stand out against the vibrant green landscaping of grass and trees.

This is a look at the side of the house showcasing unique design of the house structures.

This angle of the house showcases the main entrance of the house in between the two structures with dark roofs.

This is a closer look at the exterior wall of the house with a coal-like texture to it.

This is the interior of the living room that has a large glass wall across from the large L-shaped gray sectional sofa.

The sofa is paired with a small black coffee table that matches well with the wall-mounted TV and fireplace on the side.

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The bright and airy kitchen has a dark kitchen island in the middle of an L-shaped peninsula with white cabinetry.

This is a closer look at the black kitchen island next to the dining table and the white kitchen peninsula topped with a modern lighting.

This is another look at the dark kitchen island that contrasts the white modern cabinetry of the kitchen peninsula and matches with the black modern lighting above.

This is a closer look at the sink area of the peninsula that has white marble backsplash.

This is a closer look at the dark dining set on the side of the kitchen island topped with a modern dark lighting above.

This is a hallway with glass walls on both sides that leads from the kitchen and dining area.

The staircase has mosaic stone steps complemented by the modern lighting underneath the floating banisters.

This is a close look at the shower area of the bathroom with dark fixtures that stand out against the light wooden tones.

This is the fully equipped sauna room of the house that has wooden built-in benches that match the walls and ceiling.

The bedroom has a wooden platform bed that matches with the wooden sofa on the foot across from the glass wall.

This is an illustration of the ground level floor plan.

This is an illustration of the basement level floor plan.

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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 “shousugi-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…