“The idea was above all to build a second place, a second home, a second workshop,” explains Erwan Bouroullec to Magazine. “I was born and raised in the countryside and I realize now that much of my design practice has been shaped by the environment of nature and agriculture that was my life until I was 20.”
Recognized among the most brilliant designers of the moment (along with his brother Ronan with whom he runs an office in Paris), this project illustrates his conception of spaces and how furniture is inserted into architecture. The rehabilitation of the old farm, in the French region of Burgundy, has included a set of agricultural buildings that had been disused for 40 years, surrounded by countryside and nature.
Today the interior exudes the authenticity of what it was originally. And, at the same time, it is a completely current project, aligned with that contemporary taste for raw surfaces, which show the different layers of its past. “The buildings – Erwan points out – had had so many interventions basically because the nature of their task was evolving. “You could see this clearly, so we did our own, but without erasing anything from the past that they could maintain.”
For him, however, the most important values of the place are “the sensations: heat, rain, rocks, mud, smells, animals, different skies. “One of the dilemmas of our society is that many simple sensations are becoming less and less accessible.” And he points out how in a city most surfaces are hard and resistant to water, or how rain and wind tend to be invisible due to the many urban facilities. And the little contact with animals and plants. “But we need to nourish ourselves in body and soul with various sensations and feelings from the world. This place is in the middle of the landscape. And it is perfect to enjoy the seasons.”
It is precisely the landscape, for him, one of the magic of the place. That is why the new design focuses on transparency and wide views. “We decided to align the large windows from one facade to the other, so from a distance you can see through the house to the outside.” “It is probably the main feature that we transformed from the original building: it was rather closed, relatively dark, designed for utilitarianism. And we open it widely to the landscape. In a way, we made it more part of the environment than it was.”
Also surrendering to the environment was a reason to carry out responsible construction in terms of energy and resources. This brought another premise associated with the project: incorporate only the materials that were necessary and reuse as much as possible. Most were found in situ or came from very close by. Hence, Douglas fir wood has a prominent presence. To preserve the atmosphere and history of the place, the workers were told that “it should be the house of bricklayers and carpenters, which is the opposite of plasterers and cabinetmakers.” Erwan states that it was never his intention to create a "dramatic piece of architecture." “In my work as a designer I love when a series of decisions arise from rational thinking. Creativity is sometimes the wrong energy. Listening and balancing is not what is praised first in design practice, but I have learned over the years that composing with context can be the best thing to do.”
In their designs, the Bouroullecs have always taken care of the comfort and ergonomics of a piece of furniture and the relationships it establishes. Like the recent Abalon sofa for Vitra, in a seating area of the old farmhouse, which addresses the ergonomics of a single person, but also of the circle and the people who will sit together.
“Most of the time I see furniture as a kind of building within a space,” Erwan clarifies. Here I can build a lot on this strategy because the spaces are large, and even a fairly large piece of furniture can seem very lonely. It is very interesting because it creates a permanent idea of possible evolution, that space can become something else”.
The rehabilitated farm is proving to be an optimal setting for this. In addition to spending family vacations, Erwan uses it as his own studio, carrying out visual experiments and taking multiple photos. Likewise, he has already taught a workshop for 25 ECAL design students who camped and experimented on site for a week.
He confesses that for a long time he was a little afraid to start furnishing the rooms, because the atmosphere of emptiness was very special. He finally designed some beds for the bedrooms, a kind of box closed on three sides. They became the start. “But from now on – she adds – everything else depends more on intuition and fun. I hate well-made spaces, where everything is curated and aligned.”
Another of the distinctive features of pieces with the Bouroullec seal is that, in addition to presenting innovative solutions and ingenious ideas, they show the structure in an obvious way. Why do you think it is important for the user to understand the structure of a piece of furniture or an architectural space? “It's something I think about often,” Erwan answers. In summary he would say that there is a growing problem in our man-made world: people have less and less ability to understand the nature of a material or a manufacturing method. There are good and bad reasons for this, but the result is that many of the things around us are very difficult to read. It means that step by step we become blind in our physical world. I really pray for a more transparent design, meaning elements that are easy to identify, deconstruct and understand.”
According to the designer, the countryside is a very appropriate place to discover ways of making, because it combines many things: the materials are most of the time quite affordable or free, from the surroundings. And the farmers have a very direct relationship and an inventive way to solve any issue. “One of the best things is that the field practices are quite low key and carry a certain positive ignorance of style. So building this place in Burgundy was undoubtedly a way of going back to what he already knew. But it is also a clear decision to see and participate in a world that is the opposite of mega cities. For him, most design today has people living in cities in mind. An approach that he considers wrong and narrow-minded. "Having this place here in the field gives you another point of view."
Although the Bouroullec brothers, Ronan (1971) and Erwan (1976), are certainly not twins, given their work so intertwined for years it sometimes happens that it is difficult to distinguish them. Born in Quimper (Brittany, France), since they opened a joint office in Paris in 1999, they have stood out for their distinctive, subtle and original approach. They are part of that select club of designers who have defined elegant contemporary furniture without needing to resort to classicism to validate it as such.
Today, in addition to collaborating with the most prestigious firms in the sector: Vitra, Established
After 25 years of career as a designer, Erwan Bouroullec declares that he has a wide spectrum of interests and projects on different scales and of a very diverse nature. He currently enjoys this 'activities collage'. “But it is also true that with greater professional maturity, and seeing the situation around us, I increasingly want to do better with less. The worst thing we can do now is ruin resources.”
