Villa Varoise

This project appeared in the March 2020 issue of ARCHITECT.

Dubbed the “Dortoir Familial,” or family dorm, when it won a P/A Award in 2013, the now-completed Villa Varoise in southern France provides flexible accommodations for extended family gatherings that range between five and 22 people. Nader Tehrani of Boston-based NADAAA—working with Paris-based associate architect Bidard & Raissi—designed the 5,300-square-foot house on a sloped site overlooking the Mediterranean. “The house’s immersion into the earth is an idea about the landscape,” Tehrani says—as well as a strategy for privacy. The area was once agrarian, filled with vineyards and fruit trees, but there’s been a recent densification of villas, which means the neighbors are now quite near.

Splitting the rhomboid courtyard plan vertically into two Ls, each on a different level, was part of a strategy to shield spaces—both indoor and out—from the neighbor’s eyes. “The two wings are oriented to the neighbors with relatively opaque walls that protect the courtyard,” Tehrani says. This directs the views from all interior spaces toward the southeast and the Mediterranean. Visitors enter the site from a driveway to the north, where the imposing concrete mass of the house, with its cantilevered prow at the northeast corner, is to their left. “The landscape goes through the house,” Tehrani says. “You can walk up into the courtyard under the cantilevered wing and the landscape literally goes through the living room and into the upper portion of the site.”

On the main, upper level, the primary living spaces progress in a line along the west side of the complex with the main entry, master bedroom, and an office to the north. All rooms open directly to the courtyard and its large swimming pool.The lower level is nestled into the hillside, and has six bedrooms that open to grade along the east and south sides of the house. A family room occupies the corner of the L-shaped plan. Long hallways to the bedrooms are illuminated by ethereal daylight from windows that look into the water of the pool.

With its raw concrete walls, complex circulation paths, and bold structure, Villa Varoise can seem like a heroic composition—one that belies the modestly scaled spaces within. The concrete is raw and uses local aggregates, which impart a subtle orange hue that matches the color of the earth in the area. The demising walls between the lower level bedrooms are 8-inch-thick concrete, which provides superior acoustics and structural support. At the exterior, these walls taper to just 2 inches in width, providing the glazed east façade with a subtle columnar order. Most interior walls are board-formed concrete, with some more finely finished areas clad in MDF, which provides a smooth, almost satiny, surface. Nonstructural walls are teak veneer millwork, which often conceals built-in storage.

The hills close to the Mediterranean have pleasant sea breezes throughout the summertime, so “the living area is all about cross ventilation,” Tehrani says, noting that there is minimal need for air conditioning or heating. Movable teak trellises outside the bedroom windows shelter the spaces from direct sunlight and provide security for the house when it is unoccupied.

One of the few changes between the 2013 award-winning scheme and its physical realization is the roof: While conceived as a green roof, which seems more fitting to the landscape ideas about the house, in practice it is rendered in red tile, a requirement by local officials that Tehrani characterizes as “a projected notion about heritage.”

Realizing the project took more than seven years. “The political terrain was complex,” Tehrani says, and “getting it through approvals was a monumental task.” Daring in conception and clinical in execution, the Villa Varoise is a flexible retreat poised somewhere between poetry and prose.

Project Credits
Project: Villa Varoise, South of France
Client: Withheld
Architect: NADAAA, Boston . Nader Tehrani (principal); Harry Lowd, Lisa LaCharité (project managers); Rawan Alsane, Tom Beresford, Craig Chapple, Katie Faulkner, FAIA, John Houser, Ellee Lee, Kevin Lee, Parke MacDowell, Ryan Murphy, AIA, Jonathan Palazzolo, Joana Rafael, Caitlin Scott, Tim Wong, AIA (project team)
Associate Architect/Interiors: Bidard & Raissi, Paris . Shirin Raissi, Marie-Eve Bidard (principals); Majed Katir (project manager); Xavier Arrighi, Jennifer Kandel, Dani Haz, Elsa Calcavino, Eugénie Pellissier, Noam Carmi (project team)
ME Engineer: TPFi
Structural Engineer: ECI Engineers Construction; Simpson Gumpertz & Heger
General Contractor: Mauro
Landscape Architect: Jean Mus
Lighting Designer: Inedit Lighting
Furniture Consultants: Corso Europa
Home Automation: Livewire
Garden: Atrium & Arhami
Size: 5,300 gross square feet
Cost: Withheld

Materials and Sources
Bathroom Fixtures: CEA Designs; SHUI; Flaminia; Boffi
Cabinets: Porro; Custom
Concrete: Cemex
Countertops: Custom
Flooring: Bisazza; Custom stone
HVAC: Hitachi
Kitchen fixtures: Smallbone
Lighting Control Systems: KNX
Lighting: Brick in the wall; I-LED; Molto Luce; Studio Italia; Buschfeld; Elumin; Luce&light
Masonry/Stone: Custom
Metal: Custom
Windows/Doors: Otiima