Maison Cannes, Fance, 1999

In the total reconstruction of this old house in Le Cannet, France, with it’s walls of up to a meter thick, new structural elements such as beams were leveled not with modern lasers, but with glasses of water to re-build in the same level of inaccuracy as when the house was first built.


Where doors were removed, a mould was made using the original door. The wet concrete was poured in using the original door as a formwork. The result was the “ghost” of the original feature was cast into the wall in negative and left raw.

The fine cracks of the original flaking paintwork can still be seen.

The roof was partially removed to open up the attic as a high walled roof terrace, decked in Red Cedar to echo the red lime render of the walls.

Where new walls or elements were added, such as the external staircase, they were left free standing, to separate them from the original structure and to understand better the “old” and the “new”.