Travelling through the North American
countryside beside a lake, behind a cultivator's home or in a densely wooded
forest one is likely to come across simple structures such as the Quonset hut
or the simple rigid A-frame. First initiated or promoted through military use
for immediate shelter or utilitarian structures, this type of standardized kit
building while accessible, never quite integrated the market as primary homes.
However both eventually came to connote a type of ready-made functional, no-frills
kit for secondary use, cottages or make shift cabins.
The idea of an instant home, allowing
owners to get away form the hustle and bustle of city life resulting from a
consumer based post-industrial service economy, helped encourage the desire for
this type of leisure architecture. Patrons were less inclined to want the
singularity they dreamed of with their primary residences and were likely to adopt
unconventional strategies. From the 1940s, geodesic domes, plastic shell houses
and a plethora of other prefab cottage interpretations were developed in every
industrialized country; a reflection of architects and producers striving to
influence the future of housing through society's new fascination with leisure.
Eero Saarinen's unfolding house
(1942), Jean Prouvé’s design for his double shell house (1952) and a particularly
atypical design for the simple «Habitat Leger de Loisir» (1980) all shared the
ideal of rapid construction and mobility through a stressed skin over an arched
metal rib joist framework. Inspired by aircraft construction, The HLL (light
leisure habitat) was available in three sizes - 26, 36 and 50 square meters at
a cost of 17 000 – 45 000 French Francs (approximately 50 000 – 100 000
2017euros).
The Société Rochel construction company
designed and manufactured the HLL or the Chalet Nova as a weekend house or for countryside
holidays. The vaulted cottage was produced in the late 1970s. It could be
delivered completed anywhere in France. An L shaped service space including kitchen,
bath and sleeping areas circumscribed the free spanning open living area. Its
composition followed a simple linear plan associated with any extruded single
span structure: lateral walls and roof delineated interior space while both
front and back walls, load-bearing, could be customized any other
material.
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| Above left : Prouvé - Below left : Saarinen - Right : Habitat Léger de Loisir |
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