Family Residence designed by Tempesta Tramparulo, In the 18th century, a new relationship came about between human society and its environment. The Romantic spirit looked to the mountains to find the sublime, an idea that Jean-François Lyotard defined in his 1984 work The Sublime and the Avant-Garde as ?that contradictory feeling – pleasure and pain, joy and anxiety, exaltation and depression?. These words resonate in one?s experience of the site chosen for this family home. The beauty of the view is breath-taking, and the building?s orientation is perfect. Yet its surroundings are marked by the sprawl of buildings typical of many neighborhoods developing in communes like Grimisuat, close to the well-conserved natural landscapes found at ever-higher altitudes as well as the built infrastructure of the Rhône valley. Photography: Milo Keller
To reconcile these contrasting impressions, the project has been finely crafted to create a frame for its inhabitants that magnifies the positives of the site and eclipses the negatives. Contrary to what one might expect, this outcome has not been achieved by putting the family?s interests above all other considerations. Instead of copying the profile of several neighboring buildings, with multiple stories rising from a base to break the line of the mountain slope, the building extends along one level. This arrangement of rooms allows it to extend diagonally with a plan adapted to its topography, while also respecting the overall...