Country of the Hills's House

Project: Country of the Hills's House
Architect: Nord

Momentary association

Label Architecture

Programme: Tourist and public reception, temporary exhibition spaces, permanent exhibition, library, multipurpose workshops, cafeteria, store, garden, bicycle point, offices.

About: The project strengthens the tourist and civic hub in the heart of the Pays des Collines and aims to promote its natural and folkloric heritage. Located next to the church and the village square of Ellezelles, the site already housed several disparate buildings: two 19th century buildings, including the old town hall, connected by an extension built in the 2000s, as well as the old village school. A new dense and tall building articulates this existing building - fully preserved and revalued - around a central courtyard. This new building complex aims to establish its public character, a point of reference and reception for the important tourist activity in the region. This attractiveness is linked to the dynamism of the activities of the Pays des Collines Natural Park (whose offices are located in the House) and to the richness of the associative, cultural and folkloric life which maintains a close link with oral tradition and the pastoral world. The definition of the permanent exhibition space was an opportunity to define with the project owner a strategy for collecting and promoting local archives that are activated by an interactive scenography: the House is intended to be "alive". The staging also goes beyond the framework of the exhibition since it is integrated into the architecture. The building is the support for projections, legends - true or false - meeting the characteristics of a folklore that cultivates its taste for the strange and humor. The crown shape of the roof; appendages evoking the dungeon and the gargoyle; the old school, which has become a ruin and a garden of mysteries; the red-brick color specific to vernacular construction declined on the floors and walls, ... All these elements support a strong narrative load shared with a functional or technical role.