PRIVATE DWELLING

The parcel was earmarked for a semi-open construction and the dwelling had to be joined with an existing modernist dwelling.

We chose to build the smallest possible “footprint”, 88m², while we were technically allowed to cover a surface area of 130m². Instead of building up the entire area, we have removed segments from the volume. As a result, entering the house becomes an experience. The front door can be accessed by means of an incline which runs through the building and opens up a perspective on the garden behind it.
The building thus looks rather slender, and in the oblong patio which is created (sun)light can fall freely on the south façade (which would not have existed if we would have built right up to the party wall) and into the garden.
The party wall, which was not used, was plastered and covered with ivy. The house’s north facade remains almost entirely closed.
There is space for one and even two cars on the incline. In this manner, the strip of land to the side of the house is not used for the typical driveway to the back of the house, but instead for a garden which runs alongside the house.

The half-sunk floor is used for an office space, which opens up onto the garden by means of an inclined plane. This floor is only 12 metres deep; above it the cantilevered kitchen (groundfloor) lends a certain dynamic to the construction, resulting in a covered terrace. The living room and kitchen are on the groundfoor, with a closed volume for the utilities. The bedrooms annex bathroom are situated on the first floor.

The dwelling, which has been entirely built using cleaved blue stone, with its typical grey-blue hue, looks neutral compared with its modernist neighbour.

The front facade is largely closed, excepting the large window in the living room. Above the passage of the inclined plane, openings have been left between the stones in the facade, for the light to fall onto the terrace of the first-floor bedroom.
Those facades, in which openings have been created in the building volume, have been covered with sawn bluestone; the other walls are in cleaved blue stone. The joins between both types of stone have been mitred.