BV House / Bruno Vanbesien

closed

Text description provided by the architects.As lots of families still leave the city, this house demonstrates that one can have a creative, ecological, and spacious home in town. On the back side, the house opens onto a park. As the entire site was built up, it was more important to remove than to build. The introduced garden and courtyard give light and stimulate vistas throughout the building. The idea was to give a meaningful interpretation of the four floors. Although the kitchen on the ground floor and the living room on the first floor are detached, the vide relates them.By opening the two facades on the first floor, the light flows excessively into the living area and thus the kitchen. The external and internal slats on the front guarantee privacy from passersby and stimulate a fascinating play of light that constantly changes during the day. On the back, the living room opens onto a deep terrace. To guarantee the privacy of our neighbors a distance of 1,9 meters is kept off the dividing walls.The green roof is formed by heightening the ceilings on the ground level. The differentiation in ceiling heights emphasises the spaciousness of the living, while in the more functional spaces downstairs, the ceiling is lowered to 2,35 meters. That’s why we got a ceiling height of 3,10 meters in the living room.Thanks to the patio and staircase the kitchen also benefits from an abundance of daylight. “The two upper floors kept their original height. The interior is a ‘Gesamtkustwerk” full of details created uniquely for this house an mostly made on the spot:  he concrete of course, but also the steel column, the welded stairs, the terrazzo bath, the cooker hood, the ash tree furniture and most of the lighting fixtures.