Extensions & villa fit-outs in Villefranche-sur-Mer

Here no parcel escapes the perimeter. The commune lies in its entirety within the registered site « Littoral de Nice à Menton », instituted by an order of 20 March 1973; a piece of land at Cap Roux has moreover been classified since 24 December 1913. The col, the slopes of the Corne d’Or, the margins of the Basse Corniche and the old centre therefore come under the same underlying regime. There is, in Villefranche, no discreet spot where a volume may be set down while sparing oneself the procedure. That closes nothing; it merely obliges one to begin with the file rather than with the drawing.

That regime has a precise mechanism. Registration obliges the parties not to undertake works other than the maintenance of buildings without having given the administration four months’ notice (environmental code, art. L341-1). This prior notice is addressed to the prefect, who obtains the opinion of the architecte des Bâtiments de France; where the works fall under a planning authorisation, the permit application or the prior declaration stands in its place (art. R341-9). And any demolition there is subject to a demolition permit (planning code, art. R*421-28). Taking down a low wall, removing an outbuilding, opening a gable are therefore not preliminaries: they are matters formally examined.

The sea imposes its own scale. The first hundred metres from the shore remain closed to building outside the already urbanised parts; beyond, in the areas close to the shore, urbanisation may grow only in a limited and justified way. One of these rules draws a line, the other weighs a measure — and it is the second that most often settles the fate of an enlargement, since it bears on the volume added and not on its position alone. We therefore establish the envelope before drawing: height, footprint, setback, proportion of the addition to the fabric that receives it. A drawing that starts from the envelope is examined; a drawing that ignores it is done again.

Two local layers are added to that. The centre is covered, over a substantial part, by a protection regime for the surroundings of monuments, which bears on external appearance — hence on what an addition gives to be seen. The commune’s two harbours, the Darse and the Santé, are moreover among the port sites carrying heritage protection within the Nice metropolitan area. On the slopes, visibility from the sea does the rest of the work: a volume that troubles no neighbour at ground level may be seen from the whole bay. It is the viewpoint from the far shore that arbitrates, not the one from the garden.

Outside the old town the commune spreads along the hillside on the slopes overlooking the bay, in villas set on successive terraces. An enlargement is drawn there in section before it is drawn in plan: one looks for a level, a projection, a covered terrace, rarely a new footprint on the ground. The bay moreover turns the fabric due south onto a wide maritime opening — strong glare, long sunshine, continuous saline exposure on the elevations that face it. A pergola is sized there for the harshest hour and not for the mildest; a pool is placed where evaporation and wind leave it in peace; a bay window is shaded before it is enlarged.

An addition never stands alone. What the slope and the existing walls will accept to take up belongs to structural work; bringing the residence up to the level of what is joined to it belongs to high-end renovation; the accord of materials between old and new belongs to bespoke finishes and interiors. There remains the question that decides matters here, and that none of the three settles alone: what the whole will give to be read from the far shore of the bay. Our crafts in Villefranche-sur-Mer are ordered around it.