|
Melting within nature
Architects : Geert Buelens and Veerle Vanderlinden
This house was laureate of the Concours Construction Acier 2004, (category residential buildings) and changed the traditional plans.
Placed on an inclined site in Flemish Brabant, south of Brussels, the construction shaped like a plane parallel marks off her unexpected silhouette on a forested background, place in a zone where trees serve as a curtain. The relationship with nature comes about alternatively by vision or physical contact. Besides the dozen of concrete pillars as a base, the construction is entirely made in steel and glass. Hardly three months were required to place it. The voluntary enormous dimensions of the fixed, glass walls contrast with the intransparency of the opening wooden Okoumé wings or the industrial galvanized steel doors.
Structurally, the house is built up around six steel galleries on a base of 3.2 metres, dictated by the standard dimension of the glass panels. The use of sized flat steel instead of standard sections reduces the volume and weight. The steel structure – galvanized on the outside, not treated on the inside – was mounted on the construction site by bolting. In respect of the building process, some construction details were left revealed/open . The building structure as well as the finishing are effectively completely visible in their nudest shape. |
|
|
The plan is based on a very simple principle : two levels developed according to a grid derived of the structure modules. Office and bedrooms on street level while as the rooms for living with access to the garden on the lower ground floor. Changing at the same time the reference points and spatial relations, the architectural work dealt with a dematerialisation of the space. The simplicity of used means is interpreted into a large artistic expression power and a form of architecture that introduces a family life free of all obligations, like a loft.
|
|
