Villa VH in T / Beel & Achtergael Architecten

Oct 2010

Uploaded by Nico Saieh — Filed under: Houses ,Selected , Beel & Achtergael Architecten, Belgium, Flanders

▼

Add this to My Bookmarks:

share by email

share by email

Architects: Beel & Achtergael Architecten
Location: Flanders, Belgium
Project Architect: Axel Cayman
Building Coordination & realisation: Vanhaerents N.V.
Stability engineering: VK engineering
HVAC: Studiebureau R. Boydens
Landscaping: Borovoorbuitenruimten
Project Area: 862 sqm
Project Year: 2008-2009
Photographs: Filip Dujardin

The client wanted a house where he could relax in calm and privacy among his family and friends and enjoy his extensive art collection.

The site for the building is on a mixed vernacular residential / light industrial street close to the clients companies offices.

ground floor plan

upper floor plan

While the general surroundings at the rear of the plot are agricultural and offer a quiet perspective, there is considerable traffic at the front.

In this project we therefore tried to create “a little world on its own” by arranging all dwelling quarters on the ground floor in a U-shape around an open air courtyard.

On the inside of this shape a continuous glass wall opens the generous circulation and living rooms to this “heart”, the social core of the house. Designed for easy living, it is here that guests are invited to enjoy the light, space and art.

To the outside the walls of the building are mostly closed however: smooth surfaces of white plasterwork, only sparsely punctuated with large windows where needed for the more intimate rooms that cradle the transparent inner space.

The first floor is reserved for business and recreational seclusion: discrete volumes house an office and a media room and give shape to the silhouette of the house, their distinct windows catching north light and looking across the surrounding fields.

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: © Filip Dujardin

: site plan

: basement floor plan

: ground floor plan

: upper floor plan

: roof plan

: elevation 01

: elevation 02

: elevation 03

: elevation 04

: section 01

: section 02

* Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.

Cite:
Saieh , Nico . "Villa VH in T / Beel & Achtergael Architecten" 08 Oct 2010. ArchDaily. Accessed 26 May 2012. <http://www.archdaily.com/80795>

Comments (13)
Tweets (27)
Links to this entry (1)

gorgos says:

I definately did not expect this type of house in belgium :) , but the private spaces seem to be well protected and are not just glass (like the livingroom). I really like it.

# October 9, 2010 at 01:51

up_today_arch says:

Very clear… very readable solution… good piece of architecture…

# October 9, 2010 at 10:55

sindy says:

beautiful!! if you want to live in a white glass museum..i think it’s too impersonal for a home

# October 9, 2010 at 11:30

Jake says:

Clean and pristine. Only problem….the strange sculpture by the pool.

# October 9, 2010 at 12:30

Axel says:

The sculpture is a work form 2007 by Marc Quinn called “Myth (Sphinx)”
Read more about the artist:
http://www.marcquinn.com/biography/

# October 11, 2010 at 02:57

aifa says:

should be mine. along with the 911, the land rover, ans the 5 series. minus the sculpture, the kids, and the mothers.
would add some protection to the street though.

# October 10, 2010 at 16:21

-1

alan says:

Generalmente se ve a la arquitectura como un objeto aislado de la ciudad, que resalta y adquiere un protagonismo. La arquitectura ahora ya no se utiliza para construir ciudad. Importa mas el edificio que la ciudad :(

# October 10, 2010 at 21:06

@alan Thank you for your remark! As much as i can understand it however, i have to disagree: the typology of the courtyard house is very much a classic urban type used in many cultures with urban relevance in the way that it creates the walls of a human scale for defintion of surrounding public spaces in a much more convincing way than you can mostly see in Belgium today, where urban planning regulations (that this project also has had to follow) mostly require houses to be presented as objects on a plot rather than allowing a more spatially relevant approach.

# October 11, 2010 at 06:35

Damien says:

Entendería tu comentario si el proyecto en discusión estuviera en la ciudad y este no respetaría el contexto, pero en este caso es una villa en los suburbios de los cuales no tenemos ninguna información, por lo que no se como se podría concluir que el proyecto no está respetando su entorno. Por otra parte la fachada que se muestra al exterior (público) se ve muy sobria, respetuosa y sin ninguna intención de sobresalir o llamar la atención.

# October 11, 2010 at 13:52

alexander says:

cliche modernist architecture

# October 11, 2010 at 03:04

voisindeville says:

it’s getting more and more boring all those villas for rich people …

We’d like more architecture that ordinary people can pay for it.

# October 11, 2010 at 03:13

Maybe it is interesting to clarify why the house looks the way it does, the insistence on simple geometries, and the detailing to reinforce these.

It is not a “style-choice”, but a way to make clear the proportions of mass and void, the relationship of all sizes to all others, and human scale at the centre.

Because I do feel very strongly that the way the human eye perceives sizes and scale, unifies us all.

In a time where everybody struggles to inject explicit meaning and global validity into their work through concept, this could be an important lesson: it is, in fact, not the ever louder dressing of structures with the sauce of alien ideas that makes for an effective architectural communication across cultural boundaries, but the silent, languageless shape and disposition of simply the elements of construction needed.

# October 12, 2010 at 04:08

me says: