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Architects: Bovenbouw
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:David de Bruijn
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Manufacturers: BMB, Bomat, Heylen Ceramics, Hirtum, Skylux, Stone, TopCer, Xinnix
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Lead Architects: Dirk Somers, Nicolas de Paepe, Carole Boeckx, Sander Laureys, Marius Grootveld, Nuño Zapata
Text description provided by the architects. The passive house gives high-quality urban living a place in a hidden corner of Brussels’ city center. On a very shallow plot between high apartment buildings, the house offers an exciting living solution. The building typology blends a building with an industrial character and a mansion, both building types characteristic of the neighborhood.
The window division is, similar to industrial architecture, very regular and ordered. A large bay window marks the entrance and organizes the façade composition. It's a reference to the characteristic architecture of the area, without being historicizing.
The main component of the building is red-brown brick, cross-masonry in an alternation of colorless glazed and non-glazed bricks. The brick shell folds around the corners on the nines and sides of window openings and of the bay window. The remarkable brick bond is a well-thought-out pattern of five different sizes cut from the same conventional brick. Lintels and sills are made of glazed brick that match the brickwork’s color.
Bovenbouw replaced the two-story workshop, spread out over the lot creating difficulties to get daylight into the rooms, with a stacked single-family house, meeting the scale of the existing buildings in the street. Stacking the program on top of each other resolves into bright, open, and spacious sun-trough rooms. The difficult lot’s shape resulted in an eccentric positioning of the oval staircase in the back.
On the ground floor, a welcoming entrance guides you towards the stairs with orange-colored balustrades. Rounded walls created a smooth route from the front door towards the staircase. The rounding has been incorporated into a leitmotif in reveals and corners. The blind protrusion in the facade provides a discrete location of a TV corner and a bathroom. On top of it, a generous south-facing terrace overlooks the street.
