Dutch designer Piet Hein Eek has spent ten many years renovating an outdated mill in France’s Dordogne area into a pair of vacation homes that visitors can rent .
Developed to be rented out by two families or to a large group, the cluster of stone buildings that comprise the former mill have been split into two properties. The residences characteristic unique exposed stone walls and terracotta tiled roofs, and are furnished with Hein Eek’s furniture and modern artwork.
The Eindhoven-based designer is ideal recognized for his scrap-wood goods, where timber off-cuts are meticulously glued with each other to form armchairs, sofas, and prints for wallpaper. But he has lately branched out, launching a view with Dutch organization Leff during this year’s Milan design week and setting up Piet Hein Eek Architecture.
This sister organization to his style studio specialises in the conversion and renovation of former industrial buildings into offices or vacation properties. Its first finished project is the pair of quick-term rental homes in the Dordogne, a well-liked vacation destination in south west France named right after the river that flows by way of the region.
The task took almost a decade to total, like a short hiatus during which Hein Eek targeted on his Eindhoven home.
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“Had we acknowledged in advance how lengthy it would take prior to we had finished function on our holiday residence in France how much energy and energy it would involve, we almost certainly would never have carried out it,” mentioned Hein Eek. “But boy, are we pleased to have it now. The book I’m creating about it will be all the sweeter for it.”
“Ruins have often been my great enjoy and are just about the only form of home that I have pursued from modest,” he added.
The complex stands in an idyllic rural setting and characteristics a large veranda overlooking the river that was after a source of energy for the mill.
Refurbishments and extensions are intended to meld with the old stonework to create a seamless impact. Wood for the building operates was sourced the adjacent woodland and glazed awnings disguised with purple wisteria plants.
“We have developed in the tradition but in a way as one particular would have completed it then now,” he said. “Stone, wood, concrete, glass, stone the homes are in nature and from nature.”
“Almost everything is thorough, almost every thing is new, nothing stands out. It is not an architecture to stand out, or even to think about. It is rather architecture to fall away and over all to keep in.”
The bare stone walls within are decorated with colourful artwork perform which includes a vibrantly striped wallpainting by Dutch artist Jan van der Ploeg, and Hein Eek-created seats dress living spaces.
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A further artwork constructed from the discarded lids of camembert cheese packaging was developed by Hein Eek and his wife Jeanine – an element of thriftiness imparted from the designer’s scrap-wood goods.
Strip lights are set into the wooden rafters over the bedrooms on the upper floor, even though branching chandeliers illuminate the living and dining locations that are spread across the ground level.
Hein Eek is presently functioning on the restoration of many other structures like a Friesian farmhouse and a former industrial creating in Rotterdam.
Photography is by Thomas Mayer.
