La Claye House is a self-built dwelling on a former garden plot in the village of La Claye, France. Set within retained stone walls and around an existing well and former chicken coop, the project uses a timber structure, reclaimed local stone, and a compact plan to establish continuity with the scale and material order of the surrounding settlement.
La Claye House Technical Information
- ArchitectsAtelier Iso
- LocationLa Claye, Vendée, France
- Project Year2023
- Photographs© Charles Bouchaib
“The living space is placed at the center of the plan, in direct relation with the two gardens that it broadly extends.”
– Atelier Iso
Infill Strategy and Village Continuity
La Claye House occupies a long-unbuilt corner parcel within the compact fabric of a Vendée village. Formerly the kitchen garden and chicken run of the adjoining property, the approximately 300-square-meter site retained a dense accumulation of physical evidence: rough local stone boundary walls, a small former chicken coop, mature planting, and a well. Rather than clearing these fragments to establish a neutral building platform, the project treats them as determinants of its position and external spaces.
The house follows the north-south orientation of adjacent buildings and addresses Rue du Lay through solid gable ends. This is a measured response to the village’s recurring sequence of stone walls, narrow plots, and end-facing roofs. Reclaimed stone on the boundary-facing elevations extends this existing texture without turning it into a superficial veneer. From the public realm, the new volume is partly withheld behind the retained walls, allowing the roof profile and stone gables to enter the established rhythm of the street.
Its narrow bar divides the plot into two gardens with different civic and domestic roles. At the corner, the east garden operates as a foreground space between the house and Rue du Bourg. It makes the dwelling perceptible within the village while preserving the low, walled threshold characteristic of the setting. To the west, a more sheltered garden becomes an extension of everyday occupation. The preserved well and former outbuilding prevent the site from becoming a residual perimeter, instead giving both gardens distinct anchors and boundaries.
Plan as a Sequence Between Gardens
The plan places a single, generous living room at its center, with bedrooms positioned at opposite ends. This arrangement avoids subdividing the small footprint into a corridor and a collection of isolated rooms. The principal room acts instead as a spatial hinge, with direct access and visual continuity toward the two gardens. Full-height openings draw the changing conditions of lawn, stone walls, trees, and seasonal planting into the daily field of the interior.
The bedrooms use separation across the length of the building to establish privacy rather than relying solely on internal partitions. Each room includes an open private shower and washbasin area, as well as a mezzanine capable of accommodating an additional double bed. The compactness of these rooms is offset by vertical expansion and by controlled views to small exterior courts or garden edges. Thickened oak-lined openings further articulate the transition between collective and private domains.
East-west sightlines pass through the central living space and, in places, connect one garden to the other. This permeability is functional as well as visual. Openings support natural cross-ventilation across the house, while the long plan turns movement into a sequence of thresholds rather than a simple linear route. The concrete slab continues through the interior, reinforcing the sense that the dwelling is organized as a continuous ground plane between exterior rooms.
Material Dialogue Between Stone, Timber, and Roofscape
The house distinguishes between its public, boundary-facing surfaces and its garden elevations. Gable ends and facades adjacent to streets or plot limits are constructed in reclaimed local stone, sourced from the site and a neighboring parcel. Their irregular courses and mineral depth relate directly to the village’s existing walls. The use of stone also gives the more closed elevations a degree of mass and permanence appropriate to their role as limits within a tightly bounded settlement.
Along the gardens, the building changes register. Timber facades accommodate a more open rhythm of oak-framed glazing, shutters, and doors, placing inhabitation in direct contact with exterior space. Pale Douglas fir panels are treated with a natural silicon- and potassium-based finish that softens their appearance toward a weathered grey. The junction between stone and timber is deliberately legible, marking a transition between a protective village edge and a lighter, more permeable domestic frontage.
Canal tiles complete the building’s relationship with the local roofscape. Their familiar profile gives the simple gabled section a clear place among neighboring pitched roofs, even as the timber construction introduces a more precise modular order below. The project depends on material contrast without allowing the materials to become autonomous episodes: rough limestone, pale timber, oak glazing frames, dark eaves details, and terracotta tiles each correspond to a different environmental and spatial condition.
Grid, Self-Build Construction, and Interior Economy
A regular 0.60 meter grid structures the house in plan and elevation. Timber posts mark each module on the garden facades, making the structural logic visible in the spacing of glazing, solid panels, and shutters. The grid provides more than constructional discipline. It calibrates the scale of openings and gives the elongated volume a readable rhythm, preventing the garden elevations from becoming a continuous glazed strip.
Douglas fir three-ply panels fill the bays between structural elements and extend into the movable components of the facade. Sliding shutters and the pivoting entrance door are made from the same material as the cladding. When closed, they suppress the distinction between wall and opening, producing a continuous timber envelope. When opened, the facade shifts from a protective screen to a series of framed garden relationships. The differing window rhythms on the east and west elevations further adjust this system to privacy, orientation, and the character of each garden.
Construction was undertaken by the architects, apart from earthworks, foundations, and the quartz-finished concrete slab. This method supported the development of details during construction and reduced the separation between design decisions and material assembly. Inside, poplar plywood lines walls, ceilings, partitions, doors, and fitted joinery, while plasterboard is restricted to wet rooms. Plywood offcuts were reused to make the table, bar, and bookcase, giving the interior a materially consistent economy in which residual construction material becomes part of domestic use.
About Atelier Iso
Atelier Iso is an architecture practice with offices in La Claye and La Rochelle, France. Its work on La Claye House combines retained site elements, reclaimed local stone, timber construction, material reuse, and self-build methods.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: Private
- Construction company: Atelier Iso, except for earthworks, foundations, and the quartz-based concrete slab.
- Other contributors: Photography by Charles Bouchaib.
