Habitat groupé «la Cense Inverse»

The farmhouse and its surrounding land in Saméon were bought jointly by 4 households who wanted to leave the city to live in the country. The future inhabitants wished to live in shared spaces in order to reduce their ecological impact, but also to preserve part of their home, while being able to receive the public. For a year and a half, the group met regularly to draw up the project, the charter and the criteria for the future place. The farm consists of different buildings: a large house facing the street, a small house attached to it, a stable facing the meadow, a pigsty, a cowshed. The maisonnette groups together what is shared: a laundry room, two bedrooms, a multi-purpose indoor space. Then, the project distributes the dwellings in each of the existing buildings, preserving the intimacy of the homes. The meadow is composed of vegetable gardens, an orchard and a communal henhouse. This old farmhouse is imbued with new life, with many artistic and cultural activities organized by the group of inhabitants. The particularity of this project is that it was taken in hand from A to Z by the inhabitants. From self-promotion to self-construction, the group has carried out the scale of the project from the very beginning. We accompanied them through the different phases of the project and respected their choice to do it on their own. Particular attention was paid to the use of ecological and bio-sourced materials in the overall project. Douglas fir, larch, raw earth, textile and bio-sourced insulation materials, participatory labour, are the elements that were highlighted during the construction site. In particular, two houses were insulated with straw bales according to the professional rules that came into force in 2012 and certified.