The horse

  • Typologies : Renovation of a rural house into 3 apartments

    Location: Céligny, Geneva, Switzerland

    Owner : comptoirs du belvédère

    File : CEL

    Phase : Authorization

    Date : 2020 -


    This is an old rural building, from the second half of the 18th century, in the heart of the village of Céligny, which had a barn, a stable and a vault probably linked to a wine activity. It has all the lexicon of a rural building, with its large vaulted entrance, its exterior staircase, its molasse frames, its deep spaces and its powerful framework. These specificities make it a building classified as remarkable in the Genevan heritage.


    It was decided to recover the aesthetics of the original volume by destroying an extension from the middle of the 20th century which was then used as a garage. The housing typologies are developed in three vertical bands of triplexes. The openings created seek to harmonize with the existing facades while marking the dissociations. They remain a witness of their times. And by the same token fill the palimpsest wall where the evolution of the centuries and the change of the uses are written. In the volume of the vault are three large openings and a spiral staircase, where the different curves intersect. In order to preserve the entrance porches, it was decided to place the glass wall in the background. We insisted on the questions of proportions of the facade with these slender openings in the idea of hierarchizing the different registers of the facade, with a ground floor marked by these large openings. With the disappearance of the terrace, the windows on the first floor remain French windows and consequently have a metal railing added.


    Finally a last volume is renovated. It was an old pigsty, whose stalls will be transformed into cellars, and the facade, the most expressive protected by a canopy that also shelters the cars of residents.