This single family
house located in the suburbs of Brussels, in Eppegem near Mechelen, was built
nestled against an existing small typical Flemish house on a plot widens to the back in a easy slope towards an agricultural countryside.
The difference between
the small program on the first floor and the larger parts on the ground floor
was the beginning of the project, leading to a play of folding and wrapping between the built volume and its skin, pushing the boundary of the classical
roof-shaped house imposed by the urban rules.
The internal
organization respects a classic separation of spaces between the levels. The ground floor
includes all the day-life rooms of the house around a core which includes the
service spaces. On the first floor all the bedrooms and the bathroom are
located. Under the roof, a multifunctional attic is added. The first floor has a
“pièces en enfilade” typology resulting in an unified space enjoying also a big
terrace.
The poor quality of
the ground and the desire to create a homogeneous volume led to the utilization
of a light skin-materialization in combination with well insulated walls and
the use of fibre cement slates in a specific pattern to focus on the length of
the slates for the façade.
An effort in the detailing of the windows and
the skin led to an interesting and even poetic confrontation of the project with its typical context.