This house along the Leuvense Vaart in Mechelen, is a seemingly random play of asymmetrical concrete canopies opens and closes the façade, creating a pleasing impression of introverted openness.

The dynamics created by the angled concrete canopies and the sophisticated positioning of the triangular storeys was an aesthetic necessity, designed in response to the environment in which the house was built. In this case, a narrow, deep plot with close proximity to neighbours, but also with an expansive view of the canal and the fields behind it. The concept of the house is the result of a creative process that takes all these parameters into account in a single, consistent story.

Each storey is set back in relation to the previous one and has been superimposed at a slightly shifted angle, with the intention of creating privacy and a sense of security for the residents. This fan-like movement inward also creates a playful effect that counters the monolithic appearance of the nine-metre-high building. At the same time, the fan shape is intended to cast as little shadow as possible on the neighbours. The breaches in the concrete walls in turn create exciting openings to the garden and the water. While the concrete construction is no less imposing than the ships that slowly pass by on the canal, the openings give the whole a human scale.

The concrete from which the house is built also forms the supporting structure. This made it possible for the opening movement of the facades to be continued in the interior.
The lowest concrete wedge serves as a carport and hides the entrance of the house from the view of passers-by. However, anyone who rings the bell will instantly feel welcome thanks to the large, pivoting door and the inviting concrete entrance step. The stairs, together with a cloakroom and laundry room, are located in the concrete core of the house and lead to the living areas that nestle around the central part on the first floor in a single, flowing movement. The kitchen is bathed in the morning sun, while the living room with adjoining terrace catches the last rays of the sun. The bedrooms in the top storey are primarily functional and all open onto a beautiful terrace.

The furniture in the house was custom designed, including the storage units and fireplace wall. The special symbiosis between secure enclosure and openness also comes into its own in the interior. A feeling that is enhanced by a balanced use of understated materials, alternating the warm texture of clay plaster on walls and ceilings with the raw concrete and wooden finishing that are also used in the external facades.

The tranquil material palette of the house has been carried over into the smallest details. For the balustrades, we deliberately did not work with modern glass, but with galvanized steel. This aligns the enclosure and the breaches in the facade with the human scale of the residents, in an otherwise imposing building. The steel of the balustrades is reflected in the external staircase and gate, which were specially designed for this house. A nice detail is that in this gate, just like in the facade of the house, recesses have been applied that make the wheels of the gate visible and give it a surprising touch.

Graux & Baeyens Architecten

The post House N-DP was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The house is located in a street where terraced houses have the same frontage, as well as the same layout. A narrow and dark entrance led the residents to the stairwell, to which the living areas were linked. The kitchen and technical room were in a dilapidated extension. Despite the south-facing garden, little light was one of the drawbacks of the house; moreover, because of the many lowered ceilings, the rooms felt confining and a lot of space was used up for circulation, and the stairwell.

During the renovation, a lot of attention was paid to preserving the existing structures. The characteristic existing woodwork above the suspended ceilings has been left visible, and the structural brick walls add more texture to the house. The existing layout was virtually preserved, but by changing the circulation newly functional spaces can be used for living and / or storage. All attention was focused on making unusable spaces usable and livable again.

The new extension has a sloping volume that follows the line of the plot and functions as an urban interweaving between adjacent properties. The sitting area and dining area were housed in the lowest level so that the residents are immersed in the atmosphere of the garden. The transparent extension, consisting of 2 levels with large windows, was provided with a loft, allowing abundant sunlight and open the views of the garden. While the loft opens the house upwards, it also offers a beautiful view for the various rooms.

Inside, existing wooden beams and the existing brick walls provide a nice contrast between the light wooden construction of the extension. A tiled floor provides an additional contrast between old and new. Throughout the house, sturdy materials are combined with soft, light ones: For example, the kitchen is clad in green, moisture resistant MDF, in combination with a stainless-steel worktop. The slats add texture and play with light.

On the way to the first floor, there is an office that overlooks the loft and the garden; the master bedroom enjoys the same advantages. The bathroom / dressing was linked to the master bedroom, which includes bathroom cabinet, in order to minimize unusable corners and circulation.

The second floor, the attic, has been completely opened up and divided with a glass partition that is equipped with 3 sliding doors. The doors give out to an extra bathroom and a multipurpose room that is designed to be divided into 2 children’s bedrooms.

The atmosphere and design of the garden is inspired by a journey of the residents to “Termas Geometricas” in Chile, where peace and nature prevail.

mcdm atelier

The post Rearranging Circulation was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

Z33 belongs to the Beguinage of Hasselt, a monument and a part of the city. The historical complex resembles an island in the urban tissue, due to the exceptional size of the void and for the permanency of its border through history, an incongruous but continuous system of brick constructions. Z33 is part of this wall of buildings around the park. The park is the centre.

The design aims to promote it as a place of rest, with a different sound from the bustling of the city centre. The protection is given by the layering of the built border with its varying degrees of privacy: the park, the Begjinhof gardens, walls and gates, the plants and the herbs, the almost blind wall of the Jenever Museum and its silent chimneys, the modern severity of Vleugel’58, the solid opening of the Poortgebouw.

The house for contemporary art is one building made of two: the exisiting Vleugel ’58 and the extension building.

Vleugel’58 will remain a sequence of “chambres d’exposition”, a classical infrastructure of room with fine proportions and a certain degree of anonymity. The extension building is an ensemble of simple rooms that vary in size, proportion and light atmosphere and that overlook each other through the others: the complexity of the spatial pattern echoes the multiplicity of experiences of a city, with gradients between public and private, exposed or intimate.

The facade is the most delicate part of the project: it is the expression of the “house” towards the street.

The facade is bound to the brick architecture of the context: a continuous traditional solid masonry with variations in colour and size of both bricks and joints. It is an innovative construction of a double solid wall: an interior warm structure coupled with an exterior cold structure, which has movement in relation to temperature variations.

The design sets the goal of the construction of a solid façade in line with the traditional masonry, developing a solution, which is congruent and feasible with the technical knowledge and production possibilities of the present day.

This can be achieved by building the exterior wall of the façade as a solid composite reinforced brick-mortar wall, reducing to a mimimum the quantity of dilatation joints.

Walking along the street people experience the quietness of a long solid brick wall and a few openings from which one is overlooked by leaves and branches.

Francesca Torzo

The post Z33 House for Contemporary Art was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.

The client, a family of 5, lives in an archetypical row house on a dense plot in the historic centre of Leuven.

The home is transformed into a collection of connected spaces with very diverse characters: a very big, high and bright space with zenithal light becomes the centre of the project. A small adjoining brick shed is reached through a secret staircase. The street side room serves as a vestibule, a reception space plus storage room. The garden becomes an open-air room with green walls and an oversized water element.

The rooms are defined through a careful formulation of building elements: a floating glass-roof, a thin concrete staircase, a terrazzo floor slab, a green earth wall, a large sliding window.

This collection of rooms becomes an ambivalent living environment in the continuum of public and private rooms that compose the city fabric.

51N4E

Maxime Delvaux

The post Room in the city was originally published on ek magazine | Architectural Publications | ek magazine – Architectural Publications.