As a result of the standardization of the current construction which is becoming widespread, many individual proposals – not institutional – have emerged for a different habitat, Different, living, more respectful of man and nature. Yet the draconian rules imposed in France on family dwellings tend to stifle in the bud any innovation and synergy between the chosen site, the architectural and bioclimatic concept, the technical and economic realization, and the life projects of the future inhabitants. As early as the 1950s, architects, artists and self-builders deliberately chose to reveal and live their dreams, their values and their questions, by making them concrete in original living spaces and revealing their aspirations to live and live differently.

Claude Costy tells us:

“On the existing ruin we started bubbles, we made all sorts of vaults that would support a superior terrace on the first floor, sketches that were made every night, it was improvised, precisely, the mason had it The idea of making three fan-shaped chimneys, which we had not foreseen in our designs. ”

Claude Costy and Pascal Häusermann, both graduates of the Geneva School of Architecture (Switzerland), are starting construction of their own house, a bubble house, in 1968 in Minzier (Haute Savoie). In 1971, they founded the association “Habitat Évolutif” in Douvaine, with Jean-Louis Chanéac and Antti Lovag. The mayor of this commune, Jacques Miguet, a passionate esthete of architecture, offers them a field free of all administrative constraints, so that they can experiment with their urban theories. The project began in 1972 and stopped abruptly in 1977, following a change of municipality. It remains of this exceptional adventure an urban complex named on March 10, 2003 under the title of “Heritage of the twentieth century”