Testimony of Michel Maignan, Les Chalets d’Offaz
Property developer and property contractor, Michel Maignan has been working in property business for about thirty years. Settled in Annecy, in Haute Savoie, he is at the head of the company ‘Entre Lacs et Montagnes’, that he created about fifteen years ago, in 2001, and that produces mainly high quality installations, for detached house as well as apartment buildings. Present within two sectors, the Haute Savoie and the Ain (Pays de Gex and Bellegarde region), Michel Maignan just launched a new project in the ski resort Abondance… It is the project ‘Les Chalets d’Offaz’, a 38 apartments installation located in a snowy environment, with some LUMICENE in each apartment. It is a première in the mountains that Michel Maignan presents with pride…
Can you present us the project in few word?
Michel Maignan : It is a programme that we just commercially launched and that will be located on the skiing area ‘Porte du Soleil’ in the small ski resort Abondance. This operation that we named ‘Les Chalets d’Offaz’ will be implemented at the foot of the pistes, right next to the heart of the village, and will be built in two parts. The first part will be done of 38 flats (from two to four roomed apartments) divided in two chalets, totally in the Savoyard style… and each apartment will have a LUMICENE! This is a première in the mountains for ‘Entre Lacs et Montagnes’ but also for LUMICENE…
How did you discover LUMICENE ?
M. M. : It was a lucky meet, thanks to the press. I discovered the product few years ago, through an article in a magazine and I got in touch with Laurent Salvaire, the creator of LUMICENE. We met each other and we created straight after a small project of detached houses equipped with LUMICENE that perfectly works and that appealed to Swiss and border clients.
Why did you choose to install LUMICENE on the ‘Chalets d’Offaz’ and what is according to you the main advantage?
M. M. : With this project, we are in a snowy environment and when our clients buy an apartment in the mountains, at the foot of the skiing area, the aim is to make the most of the environment and of the countryside that offers to them. Although, making the most of a balcony or a terrace in the mountains at winter time is not an easy thing!
It requires to have nice rays of sunlight that come at a certain time of the day and that are warm enough to make the most of it without moving lying on a sun chair or sitting down on an armchair reading or admiring the view. With LUMICENE we can guarantee our clients another way of making the most of the mountains, a new way of life. To me, the main advantage is to have every day, whatever the weather, a 180° view of the skiing area and to have the feeling that we are outside while being indoors! LUMICENE totally reinvented the inside/outside relation. In case the weather is not pleasant, you can slightly open the LUMICENE anyway and modify the opening of the panels according to the wind, in order to hear children playing with snow balls without feeling the cold. This is a big advantage in the mountains!
‘Being indoors like if you were outside’ … is that for you the main advantage of the product?
M. M. : It is obviously a precious asset, but it is not the only one. Looking the snow falling, seeing the flakes coming to you as well as if you were outside, while making the most of the warm with a background music… you have to admit that the idea is really appealing! At the same time, LUMICENE is a product technically liable, and perfectly in accordance with the RT2012 expectations and probably with the RT2020 expectations. It is a solution well developed aesthetically as well as technically and regulatively since it meets the obligations about disabled access.