The task started as a near-ruin in Aurignac, France: an uninhabited medieval house, pared back to its stone structure. When a Paris-based artist discovered the village by opportunity and chose to stay, he got Les Ateliers Permanents– established by Chloé Morin and Enzo Fruytier, with a workplace in Aurignac– to restore it as a working home. “We work where individuals live, where everyday life has actually taken root: in the margins, the outskirts, the countryside, small urban centers,” Morin describes. “Everywhere, the job is to listen to what the territory informs us– and to react with precision and care.”
Here, the intervention was extensive by requirement. Your home had sat empty for nearly 20 years and remained in bad condition, so the architects worked from the edges inward. Only the walls and part of the existing structure remained, with one area formerly utilized as a barn. The roof was restored and insulated; floorings excavated and insulated; and the interior levels remodelled into a stepped series. The main living location, as soon as outdoors with jam-packed earth floor covering, is now organized around a double-height volume that draws light into the plan. Restrooms were included where there had been none.
It’s a contemporary layer that lines up with the studio’s wider principles: “Building no longer necessarily indicates constructing a new, but intervening with care in what is currently there. Rehabilitating, adjusting, changing– not by default, however by option.” Here’s an appearance.
Photography by Sandrine Iratcabal for Les Ateliers Permanents.
Above: On the street, the entry is held up from the façade to develop a shallow loggia– a small buffer from passersby that shades the glazing while allowing light. Above: Oak-framed windows and front entry with an integrated concrete rack for wood storage. Above: The entry opens into a kitchen built with oak cabinet fronts and a concrete worktop sealed with an environmentally friendly pore sealer. A central concrete table serves as both casual dining and workstation. Above: The electric cooktop is a Bora appliance and the oven is AEG. Above: Stepping into the living area at left, the dining table base is created by Richard Lampert– paired with a plywood top. 
The chairs are Gio Ponti Superleggera Chairs. < img src="https://www.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/les-ateliers-permanents-aurignac-house-sandrine-iratcabal-18-733x550.jpg" alt="with the living/dining area raised, the view from the dining table keeps an eye out 22" width="733" height="550"/ > Above: With the living/dining location elevated, the view from the table watches out to the street.