THE BUBBLE HOUSE OF MINZIER

 

ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE

BUBLE HOUSE OF MINZIER

maison bulle de minzier
The Bubble House of Minzier is an architectural concept dating from the 60s resulting from the collaboration between the architects Claude Costy and Pascal Häusermann. Organic architecture is sometimes referred to as ovoid dwellings that evoke biological organs rather than the geometric forms of traditional constructions.

This architecture seeks harmony between the habitat and the “natural” world around it. This conceptual approach to listening to the site, the architect applies it to the construction of the building and its furniture. It makes it a unified composition and intimately linked to its environment. These are mostly houses built in self-construction using the technique of concrete shell.

CONCRETE SHELL
CONCRETE SHELL
Architects Pascal Häusermann and Claude Costy are the first in Europe to use a “lost formwork” integrated into the hull for a dwelling. This is a “chicken wire” wire mesh fastened directly to the reinforcement. It retains the concrete and remains caught in the wall. In this process it is not the formwork that determines the form, but the reinforcement itself. Previously, wooden formworks were used as a guide and support to install the concrete irons. It was a constraint, but it also allowed for easier execution and better regularity. From now on, we will assemble and tie the irons freely, but it will be at the cost of a disadvantage: the reinforcement is difficult to put in place and maintain with all the regularity of the desired shapes.

FILMS ABOUT THE BUBLE HOUSE OF MINZIER

THE BUBLE HOUSE OF MINZIER

Extract from a documentary on the history of the construction of the House.

Film of a duration of 13 mn.

Directed by: Jacques Bayol

VIEW FULL VERSION

Claude Costy on France 3

Hello everyone,
today the french television news program of France 3 Auvergne-Rhône-Alpe has broadcasted a report on Claude Costy as part of a series of programs on the history of concrete.

Feel free to tell Claude Costy your comments on this topic in the form below

See you soon for new adventures in the world of concrete shell and organic architecture.
Jacques Bayol

WATCH THE REPORT

DU CÔTÉ DE CHEZ VOUS

TF1 progam shot in the Buble House of Minzier in 2003

THE BUBLE HOUSE OF MINZIER
Exterior Views
Minzier is located at 30 Km from Annecy in Haute Savoie. It is the work of the architects Claude Costy and Pascal Häusermann. The house is built on the ruins of an old presbytery of the XVIIth century of which it has preserved the foundations and some walls. The construction site started in 1968. Today the Bubble House of Minzier is the personal residence of Claude Costy. She installed her pottery workshop there.

 

 

 

Interior Views
As a result of the standardization of the current construction which is becoming widespread, many individual proposals – not institutional – have emerged for a different habitat, Different, living, more respectful of man and nature. Yet the draconian rules imposed in France on family dwellings tend to stifle in the bud any innovation and synergy between the chosen site, the architectural and bioclimatic concept, the technical and economic realization, and the life projects of the future inhabitants. As early as the 1950s, architects, artists and self-builders deliberately chose to reveal and live their dreams, their values and their questions, by making them concrete in original living spaces and revealing their aspirations to live and live differently.
THE BLUEPRINTS
THE BLUEPRINTS
  • façade 1
  • Façade 2
  • Plan
Claude Costy tells us:

“On the existing ruin we started bubbles, we made all sorts of vaults that would support a superior terrace on the first floor, sketches that were made every night, it was improvised, precisely, the mason had it The idea of making three fan-shaped chimneys, which we had not foreseen in our designs. ”

THE ARCHITECTS
THE ARCHITECTS
CLAUDE COSTY & PASCAL HAUSERMANN
CLAUDE COSTY & PASCAL HAUSERMANN
Claude Costy and Pascal Häusermann, both graduates of the Geneva School of Architecture (Switzerland), are starting construction of their own house, a bubble house, in 1968 in Minzier (Haute Savoie). In 1971, they founded the association “Habitat Évolutif” in Douvaine, with Jean-Louis Chanéac and Antti Lovag. The mayor of this commune, Jacques Miguet, a passionate esthete of architecture, offers them a field free of all administrative constraints, so that they can experiment with their urban theories. The project began in 1972 and stopped abruptly in 1977, following a change of municipality. It remains of this exceptional adventure an urban complex named on March 10, 2003 under the title of “Heritage of the twentieth century”