Does the bare-bones Maison D house take utilitarian architecture too far?

We love featuring sustainable and affordable architecture on Inhabitat, which is one of the reasons why the Fouquet Architecture Urbanisme’s Maison D caught our eye.

Wrapped in a bioclimatic envelope, the no-frills French family home was completed for the relatively affordable price of $114,674 (approximately US$128,000). To balance out the tight budget however, the architects created a bares-bone building that looks curiously unfinished from the outside. This no-frills approach begs the question of whether the design takes utilitarian architecture too far.

Located in the suburbs of Couëron in Western France, the two-story Maison D sticks out like a sore thumb among its more traditional neighbors. The architects built the bioclimatic home with a polycarbonate wood framework that spans an area of 148 square meters. The use of untreated wood, oriented strand board, and clear polycarbonate sheets gives the house its unfinished look. The large sections of transparent cladding on the roof and terrace walls bring natural light into the home.

The Maison D comprises a garage, two bathrooms, a kitchen and dining space, a double-height lounge, conservatory, roof terraces, and two bedrooms on the upper level. To regulate the temperature, the architects installed several large operable windows and carefully organized the interior spaces to follow passive solar principles and avoid solar heat gain. The house is heated by a pellet-burning stove in the colder months.