Development of a Group of Six Villas
With the assistance of a local French colleague, I took an option on a vacant site on the edge of a small picturesque village near Quissac in the Languedoc region of Southern France, and designed a scheme for six 3-bedroom villas. The design was fully detailed and priced and the draft contract documents all drawn up so that I was able to compile a sales brochure with a complete description of the scheme together with the offer of guaranteed fixed prices, guarantees of quality and of completion, terms of payment, and details of the agreement for the co-ownership of the common parts.
Each property is designed to be self-contained, and includes a small private garden/patio and a garage. All the villas share the use of a 12 x 6 m swimming pool and a tennis court, as well as of the surrounding land on the remainder of the plot. Therefore the price of each house is kept down by benefiting from the economy of scale, and from the shared cost of the land and the infrastructure, and from the shared capital and running costs of the swimming pool and tennis court. Likewise, the cost of management, letting, maintenance and cleaning services can be pooled. Each house also enjoys increased security resulting from a shared management service and the proximity of the other houses.
The scheme was financed on the basis of the well established and widely used French contract of "Vente en Etat Futur d'Achèvement". What this means is that the building work is financed by payments made by the buyers to the development company (which was set up for the purpose) in instalments commensurate with the state of progress of the building work. This formula helps to keep down the cost of the development as it minimises the need for any bridging finance.[Text continues at the bottom of the illustrations]
The villas are laid out in such a way as to maximise the privacy of each unit, as well as to grant each one the benefit of an essentially South Western orientation. Also, the unbroken diagonal line of the layout establishes a clear divide between the North Eastern section of the site which represents the means of access for vehicles as well as for pedestrians, and the South Western section which is more secluded, which connects with the patios of each house, and which is entirely free from vehicles. In this area children can roam and play freely, safe from the dangers of the road and of the coming and going of cars.
All the villas are the same although at first sight this would not appear to be the case. The varied appearance results from the rotation or the reflection of the floor plan in response to the position of each unit within the overall layout.
The floor space is compact in order to keep the construction cost at a reasonable level, and the layout is carefully refined to minimise circulation space and to maximise usable living space. Nevertheless, a great deal of attention has been given to the quality of the design in terms of the proportions and of the relationships between the spaces. The climate in this part of the world encourages the use of the patio as an extension of the internal living spaces. The plan of the villas fully exploits this asset so that for a good part of the year the glazed doors to the living room and to the kitchen / breakfast room can be kept wide open and activities can spill over onto the patio. The living room is designed with a view to creating a progression from the cosy darker more intimate end with its low ceiling and focus round the fire place, to the other end which is brightly lit and double height, and which opens directly onto the patio. This end of the living room is overlooked by a "sleeping gallery". Depending on the owner's preference this gallery can be closed in to fully separate this bedroom from the living space. The villa is designed to accommodate this alternative without detriment to either space.
