Close to Saint-Tropez, the stunning Palm Beach Club equipped with a renowned restaurant and a legendary beach, is now home to an 800sq/m Kebony wood terrace. The elegant structure blends with the natural surrounding landscape of the riviera coastline, creating a beautiful space to eat, drink and relax.
Natural light is filtered in and spreads smoothly into a curved area with skilfully sculpted volumes. The design and supervision of this building’s construction was carried out by the Parisian architecture firm Atelier Philippe Madec.
David Florentin, head of the interior design firm FG Design, and Florentin Menuiserie, who managed the wooden terrace and woodwork, explains that suitable traffic and parking areas were created as part of the urban planning study. The selected construction projects had to be environmentally friendly and worthy of this renowned international site.
The goal was therefore to primarily use natural materials, and especially wood. Kebony wood was chosen for its renowned properties. Developed in Norway, the patented Kebony technology is an environmentally friendly process that modifies softwood from sustainable sources by heating the wood with furfuryl alcohol, which is derived from agricultural crop waste. By polymerising the wood cell wall, the softwood permanently acquires the characteristics of tropical hardwood, including high durability, hardness and dimensional stability, without resorting to tropical deforestation and giving rise to a beautiful, high-performance wood product.
In addition to its carefully selected bio-sourced materials, this building features natural skylights, wood pile, and natural ventilation. The bright spaces are open to the horizon, while remaining protected from the sun. The corners, façades, and roofs echo the long sandy waves formed by the dunes.
The challenge was therefore both aesthetic and environmental. “The roof and the roof edges are akin to a boat deck. The building, on the other hand, blends in perfectly with the beautiful Mediterranean vegetation”, explains David Florentin. In total, over 800 sqm of the terrace is made out of Kebony wood. “It is Kebony’s aesthetics and hardness that appealed to the owners, as well as the softness of its dense grain. Coming from sustainably sourced lumber, it does not harm the marine environment. Its ecological treatment further makes it very solid”, continues the architect.
Over time, Kebony wood develops a natural silver-grey patina, which makes for a pleasantly spray-swept deck that perfectly blends in with its natural surroundings.