Creative residencies
Rehearsals, laboratories, immersive installations, work-in-progress showings. The floor takes long builds and unfinished states in its stride.
Crest · Drôme · France
Villa Aphéa
A place to make work, and to stay while you make it
Walk down into the garden01 — The place
The place
Having pushed open a gate on avenue Adrien Fayolle, you cross a shaded courtyard, a 19th-century house, then a garden. At the far end of the garden stands a studio floor twelve metres by fifteen, under eight and a half metres of clearance. This site walks the same route.
The 19th-century house was fully renovated in 2019, and La Fabrique built at the end of the garden as a working tool for the Adrien M & Claire B company, which devised its shows there. That is what explains the equipment: the motorised bars, the network architecture and the sprung floor were specified by people with long experience of theatres and touring.
The place is now open to other teams. Turned firmly towards nature while staying easy to reach and properly connected, it is somewhere you can put down an ambitious project and stay long enough to watch it take shape.
- of renovated house across two floors
- 400m² of renovated house across two floors
- of tree-shaded courtyard behind the gate
- 250m² of tree-shaded courtyard behind the gate
- of walled, south-facing garden
- 1,200m² of walled, south-facing garden
- of studio floor under 8.5 m clearance
- 12 × 15m of studio floor under 8.5 m clearance
- walk from Crest railway station
- 15min walk from Crest railway station
02 — The House
The House
A large 19th-century building, fully renovated in 2019.
- Furnished bedrooms, linen and towels provided
- Large offices, upstairs and at garden level
- Fitted kitchens and long shared tables
- The Tabarin: warm-up and rehearsal room, wooden floor, 8 × 5 m
- Fibre connection and mesh network across the whole site
Of the house's 480 m², 200 are available to rent. It is a space laid out so that a team can work and sleep here at the same time without getting in each other's way. Pale wood, daylight and quiet do most of the work.
Bedrooms, offices, bathrooms, fitted kitchens, a laundry room, and a wooden-floored warm-up and rehearsal room, the Tabarin, opening straight onto the garden.
The house can also be available for long creation periods, with a comfort and a simplicity of working you will not find anywhere else.
03 — The Garden
The Garden
Twelve hundred square metres between the house and La Fabrique.
A walled garden with a lime tree, fruit trees and a Judas tree, terraces to work outdoors and shade to sit in. It is the airlock between the two buildings, and a room in its own right.
The river Drôme runs a few minutes away. You can swim in it from late spring onwards, which is no small argument at seven in the evening after a day on the floor.
04 — La Fabrique
La Fabrique
A complete studio floor at the end of the garden, behind a wide glazed wall.
Twelve metres by fifteen, eight and a half metres of clearance, and a steel frame engineered to take circus rigging. Six motorised bars mounted on sliding carriages let you reconfigure the rig in minutes rather than in a day.
The network was laid out so that sound, video and lighting can all be driven from anywhere on the floor. A generous control room sits up on a walkway, from which the bars are operated directly.
- Floor area
- 12 × 15 m, 8.5 m to the steel frame
- Surface
- 9 × 12 m sprung dance floor on a damping structure
- Rigging
- 6 motorised bars on sliding carriages
- Structure
- Steel frame engineered for circus apparatus
- Sound
- Permanent 4.1 diffusion system
- Control room
- Elevated control room, walkway access
- Network
- Audio / video / lighting network across the whole floor
- Light
- Full blackout, or full daylight through the glazed wall
- Facilities
- Water point and toilets on the floor
- Access
- Direct unloading from the lane, flight-case-friendly path
Detailed technical rider and plans available on request.
The frame
Eight hundred and fifty steel members, drawn and bolted for this particular floor. That is what lets you rig almost anywhere, and hang rather more than a lantern.
The structural model, assembling as you scroll
05 — Uses
Uses
The place is deliberately versatile. Here is what has passed through it.
Film and image
Music videos, film, stills, capture, post-production. Full blackout, comfortable head height, direct unloading, and a house to put the crew up on site.
Workshops and away days
Training, offsite work sessions, creative workshops. Bring out the tables, open the glazed wall onto the garden, and the place becomes something else entirely.
Prototyping and installation
Projection, tracking, interactive systems, scenographic prototyping. Full blackout, network across the whole floor, and somewhere to rig just about anywhere.
For institutions
National and regional theatres, choreographic centres: hosting an unusual project here over a long stretch means seeing it through without tying up your own main stage for three weeks.
06 — Getting here
Getting here
Crest, in the Drôme valley, between Valence and the Vercors.
- On foot
- 15 minutes from Crest station, town centre 5 minutes away
- By train
- Valence TGV, then regional train or shuttle. Paris to Crest in about 3 h 30, a little less on a good day. There is also a direct night train from Paris Austerlitz to Crest, every day.
- By car
- A7 motorway, Loriol exit, then 20 minutes. Parking on site and nearby
- Once here
- Market on Tuesdays and Saturdays, shops and restaurants on foot, river 10 minutes away
We arrange transfers from Valence TGV on request.
07 — Rates
Rates
Indicative rates for La Fabrique alone, excluding VAT.
Daily
400
€ excl. VAT / day
Weekly
2,000
€ excl. VAT / week
Monthly
4,000
€ excl. VAT / month
These figures cover La Fabrique on its own. Accommodation in the house, stage equipment, a technician on site, catering or transfers from Valence TGV are quoted separately, to fit what you actually need.
Reduced rates apply to artistic and non-commercial projects. Do get in touch whatever your project — we would rather work out together how it could happen here.
08 — Contact
Contact
Tell us what you want to make here. We answer quickly.
