La Maison Magique

At the Japan Cultural Institute in Paris, Atelier Bow-Wow and Didier Fiuza Faustino put together a concept that explores the issue of habitat in a magical environment.

The Magical House is a project designed for The Japan Cultural Institute in Paris by Atelier Bow-Wow – Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Momoyo Kaijima and Yoichi Tamai, Tokyo – and Didier Fiuza Faustino – Bureau des Mésarchitectures, Paris – showcasing their long relationship with the habitat concept.

**Top:** Didier Fiuza Faustino, *A house is not a hole*, 2016. **Above:** Atelier Bow-Wow, La Maison Magique, 2016

The architects have chosen to work with wood from Portugal, that will be returned at the end of the show for a second life. The installation showcases two houses, rebuilt in the middle of a forest, that will be accessible to all.

Didier Fiuza Faustino designed a polyhedron with rounded edges: closed on the outside by translucent walls, balancing on one of its sides, the hermetically sealed structure is like a refuge, a cell in which one might protect oneself from a hostile environment.

Alongside Atelier Bow-Wow has made the generous offer of a roof-shaped structure the public can enter under to take shelter, or sit upon, making it a place of exchange and conviviality. This installation reminds us as much of the slatted facades of traditional Japanese townhouses, or machiya, as it does of the roofs of the first Shinto shrines.