The Maison Mouvaux is a single-family house, recently completed by TANK in the outskirts of Lille, and it is a typical example of the next-door alien. Confronted with the dismal repetitiveness of residential suburbs, against the dullness of the “home sweet home”, TANK designs a mysterious architecture, which shows no interest in its context. This is a legitimate strategy, not by chance shared by several clever contemporary architects, that end up building in these places.

The house dreams of finding itself in a wood (it is indeed surrounded by some groups of trees) and to overlook on a clearing (which is in fact its private garden). Within this imagined wilderness, TANK introduces a single wooden mass, a sculpture floating a few meters above the ground, nestled in the forest. More prosaically, this corresponds to the building’s roof, entirely made of locally-sourced wood, and very performing in terms of waterproofing and UV rays protection.

Below this canopy, two different space typologies are offered to domestic life. On the ground floor, the perimeter of the house is almost entirely glazed, reaffirming its complete interpenetration with nature. At the same time, the varying levels of both the floors and ceilings ensure a truly organic spatial experience. On the other hand, rooms on the first floor are mono-material caves made of light wood, whose unevenly angled walls are hollowed out here and there to open sudden glimpses of light and landscape.