Domaine de Gory | TAUTEM Architecture

Towards eco-responsible tourism

Construction of a holiday cottage & repurposing of a sheepfold

In Haute-Loire, at Chambon-sur-Lignon, the famous “Terre des Justes” (Righteous Among the Nations), TAUTEM is completing a frugal restructuring and construction project that promotes local know-how.  The firm is opening a subtle dialogue between landscape and architecture to provide the guests of this eco-responsible property the opportunity to fully reconnect with nature.

When a sheepfold becomes a holiday cottage…

To preserve the essence of this building dating from 1824 and to offer an authentic break to guests, TAUTEM has undertaken an intervention with a light touch, transforming the former sheepfold into a rural cottage for holidaymakers. The project includes a living room and an open kitchen in the first half of the generous volume of the existing nave. Sleeping area and bathroom are superimposed at the back of the building. The master bedroom, placed on the mezzanine, takes advantage of the favourable height of the steep sloping roof, made possible by the collar ties of the roof framework, a characteristic of traditional rural architecture in the Haute-Loire region.

Placing landscape and architecture in a dialogue and advocating wooden construction

Several hundred meters away, where the domain’s horses graze, the new holiday cottage, entirely on a ground floor, in the clearing at the edge of the wood. Through broad framing and choice of materials, TAUTEM imagines this chalet for living in symbiosis with nature. This new construction has wooden frame walls and an exterior clad in pre-weathered wood. It is comprised of two attached yet unaligned oblong volumes. Each one has broadly glazed gables. A series of narrow apertures gives rhythm to the circulation, which distributes the volume towards the back. At each doorway, the picture window facing it creates visual transparencies between the reforestation along which the volume at the back stands and the wooden pontoon, punctured by a jacuzzi.  The large picture window of the living room, resting on a wooden sill, provides a view in a landscape format, wide open and oriented towards the distance.

Frugality and local know-how for eco-responsible tourism

When building economically for eco-responsible tourism, TAUTEM systematically privileges calling upon local know-how and use of bio-sourced materials. The heat insulation of the chalet and its underfloor heating, further enhanced by a woodburning stove in a closed circuit guarantee optimal year-long comfort. The sheepfold relies only on dephasing and inertia provided by its thick walls with the aim of an exclusively summertime tourist occupation. For water treatment, each of the holiday cottages possesses a phyto-purification installation to ensure preservation of the ecological balance of the prairies located downstream where the horses graze.