This house near the French town of Caen spirals around an internal courtyard to provide privacy for the owners in an area surrounded by new homes (+ slideshow).

Maison Spirale was designed by Paris-based architects Nathanael Dorent and Mark Havasi for a retired couple who wanted a modern home with a patio.
It is in a newly developed area just outside Caen in Normandy, and was designed as an antithesis to the standard homes that surround it.

"The area was created by developers following a normative business plan, without the involvement of architects or urbanists," Dorent and Havasi told Dezeen.

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"We are very critical of this type of urbanisation, which produces an architectural no-man's land, so the house was designed to be opposed to the homogenous landscape. It needed to express a different typology," they added.
The 149-square-metre house has an open-plan layout that wraps around the central courtyard, with rooms arranged on split levels to offer a gradual progression from the ground floor to the first floor.

The kitchen, dining area and living room are on one side of the ground floor, and a utility room, storage room and winter garden are on the other side.

A study, bathroom and guest bedroom are set a half level above the living area, and a second guest bedroom and the master bedroom are on the first floor, where there is also an ateli...