Renovating an old villa, with damp walls, by the river, using natural materials? This was the challenge taken up by Eve and Thierry, who introduce us to the superb Villa Hastière, a perfect fusion of design and ecology.
This building with its particular architecture in ocean liner style, dating from 1930, enjoys an exceptional location directly overlooking the river. When Eve, a designer and Thierry, an architect, bought the villa in 2015, they ruled out the option of insulating it from the outside, as they wanted to preserve the atypical façade with its very marked horizontal lines. In search of short-circuit ecological solutions, they discovered the properties of hemp blocks and opted to use them as an insulation solution throughout the villa.
“Isohemp’s hemp blocks attracted us as the best solution for this type of building,” explains Thierry. Thanks to its water regulation capacities, this material is particularly well suited to old buildings. The breathable blocks offer a solution for damp walls, preventing the appearance of moisture pockets. “The building is always dry,” says Thierry.
“It’s a quite astonishing fact – it regulates itself. It never becomes either too wet or too dry. When the building is very damp, the walls absorb the moisture. On the other hand, when it’s very dry, the building releases a bit of humidity, which makes it very pleasant to live in,” he explains. To optimise the water regulation as far as possible, the couple, who did a large share of the work themselves, opted for a coating allowing the water vapour to circulate: “We created the ceiling with natural breathable plaster... The implementation wasn’t complicated at all. ”
Hemp blocks were also chosen for their insulating capacities, which are valuable in both summer and winter thanks to a significant thermal phase shift. “Even when it’s very hot outside, the insulation keeps it cool inside. And in winter, you can take advantage of the thermal capacity and insulation. This means that the gîte designed by Eve and Thierry can be rented all year round.
Every tiny detail has been thought of for their guests. “We paid great attention to the quality of the materials. I found it amazing to tell ourselves that we were working with materials made right here that we put in place so easily, with quite astonishing results in terms of insulation,” Thierry explains enthusiastically. And the interior decoration of this little paradise is also very noteworthy. As the creators of the Zangra design brand, Eve and Thierry designed this gîte as a real showroom of their production, with furniture and decorative objects that they designed themselves.
IsoHemp regularly organises training courses open to everyone who wants to learn about all the technical features of hemp blocks.
To find out more and discover photos of other realisations and references of construction or renovation in hemp blocks
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