Land plan and positioning of the house
The sub-divided 'plot' is bordered in orange. It covers 2065m2 and I think you can see from the land plan that it isn't the simplest of sub-divisions! Looking at the old house (top left) - this strange division permitted the conservation of its views, both from the front towards the village and chateau and to the South west side (the other 2 views of the old house obviously would not have been compromised). Also with the Praderet Daval being more than - 3m lower and tucked into the wall of bamboos there is only a small stretch of the back wall that would be visible from even the terrace of Le Vieux Praderet. Bruno and Christel (the new owners) are going to allow the bamboos to extend further around this side too to improve on this natural barrier and further protect the setting of their house.
From the road (Chemin de Moulin de Fuveau) - just off the top of the image, down to the future house is a drop of more than 6m - hence one of the difficulties - how to put in a drive down which wasn't too steep and didn't interfere with the views of either house. The sharp bend you can see in the scheme unfortunately doesn't permit a car to come around without having to do an extra manoeuvre. And - the outer edge of the turn has a 6m drop into the lower field! However, I'm looking at ideas of supporting the bank and filling this 'hole' with huge boulders with the help of Stephane and his digger. If these are securely 'stacked' it will widen the turning plane of the corner and prevent accidents!
The field bordered in green is the plot of land I am in the process of buying (1200m2). It is a bit marshy but a lovely, natural, wild area. 8 out of 11 of the current family have signed for me to buy it - which as I explained before means I would have majority ownership and basically be allowed to maintain it (keep any overgrowth in control). From their property (top right hand corner of the diagram) there is only a very very steep path down a bank to access it. So the land is useless to them (and can't be built on by anyone as it is in a flood zone) but being 3 m lower than my future house and directly in front - it is really important to me.
Little else to say about the house and its implantation - it had to be set on the boundary of the plot to give maximum ground at the front - which was a bit limited. Here in France you have to be either 4m or more from a boundary or on the boundary limit. The other rule this then engaged was that no openings can be on that side (boundary side) of the house (no windows or doors). This meant the house design had to take into consideration that all rooms that needed windows had to be located on the SE and SW sides. The NW being boundary and the NE being absolutely into the bamboos (6m + high). On the bamboo side - the house had to be more than 4 m from the boundary. To ensure I respected this the land division was set at mid track.
I think you can see from this diagram how there really wasn't many choices as to where the house could be built. Top field would have destroyed the lovely views of the old house - the lower field is a flood zone and no structures can be built there. The mid-field was all that remained - and to enjoy the lovely views in the valley it had to be tucked against the boundary and into the bamboos. Fortunately this really seems to be working out beautifully!
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