This house, known in French as « la Maison des jours meilleurs », was built by Jean Prouvé in 1956, upon request of l’Abbé Pierre. The goal of this house was to be an industrialised house that could be built in seven hours in order to provide shelter to homeless people in France. As Jean Prouvé had already designed industrialised house previously, l’Abbé Pierre asked him to imagine another cheap and easy-to-build house for Emmaüs.

As the house was designed as a shelter for homeless people, the furniture and interior architecture are minimalist : the bedrooms only contains beds and there is no useless furniture (four beds, four seats around the table…). « La Maison des jours meilleurs » is built in concrete with a central steel block that provides bathroom and kitchen facilities and contains all the pipelines, and the pannels are made of insulating-wood. As the bathroom had no window and was located in the centre of the house, which was completely revolutionary at that time, the model did not get the authorization to be industrialised.

References :

• http://www.lemoniteur.fr/media/IMAGE/2012/05/30/IMAGE_20120530_17729121.jpg
• https://www.patrickseguin.com/fr/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/designmiami-basel11.jpg
• https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Prouv%C3%A9#Sa_cote
• https://www.patrickseguin.com/en/exhibitions/2012/jean-prouve-maison-jours-meilleurs-1956/