Named Markthuis, the two-storey residence has been reconfigured to create a central atrium, helping to bring more daylight onto a double-height "exhibition wall" of paintings and antlers.

Barcode Architects replaced the original staircase with a freestanding wooden structure that folds back and forth through the atrium between clear-glass balustrades.

A frosted glass wall separates the staircase from the entrance lobby just in front, where a bearskin rug is spread across the floor.

Beyond the atrium, most of the original partitions have been removed to create a large open-plan space on both storeys. At ground-floor level, this room functions as reception room for entertaining guests, while the floor above is used as a general living and dining room.

"From any point in the villa there is a clear view out, to the sky and the green," says Barcode Architects. "Combined with the 'lofty' floor plan, it delivers the house with a unique transparency and quality."

Other recently completed house renovations include a converted stable block in England and an overhauled townhouse in the Netherlands. See more renovations on Dezeen.

Photography is by Christian van der Kooij.

Here's some more information from Barcode Architects:

Barcode Architects 'Markthuis' is completed

Barcode Architects design for the extension and renovation of 'Markthuis' is completed. The design is driven by the desire to optimise the daylighting in the house and the wish of the client to reserve a prominent place for his large collection of art and hunting trophies.

In order to maximize the spatial experience most of the interior walls are removed to remain with one open living space extending over the first two floors of the villa. Downstairs are comfortable spaces for receiving guests while on the upper first floor more intimate and private areas with an open plan kitchen, study, and lounge area are situated.

A large atrium connects the two layers and provides space for an exclusive, double high exhibition wall with an impressive amount of artefacts. The wooden staircase is placed as a freestanding piece of furniture within the vide, on one side guided by a 6 meter tall piece of glass. The glazed element separates the kitchen and the entrance lobby from the rest of the house and offers exciting plays of light and shadow.

Notice: Barcode Architects
Location: Belgium
Stage: Realized
Client: Private
Area: 400 sqm

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Barcode Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Located in the village of Mullem, the bright-white building accommodates a family house and a small practice for a physiotherapist.

Graux & Baeyens Architecten were restricted from building too close to neighbouring houses, so were only left with a narrow plot to fit the house onto. This meant all rooms had to be organised on a linear axis with the physiotherapy practice tacked onto the end.

"Planning regulations required a minimum clear gap of four metres between the neighbours on both sides of the already narrow site, which meant that the building's organisation had to be very efficient with space," explain architects Basile Graux and Koen Baeyens.

Rooms are staggered back and forth on both floors of the two-storey building, adding space for additional windows on the protruding walls. As well as letting in more light, this prevents any problems with overlooking the neighbours.

All bedrooms are positioned on the ground floor, freeing up space on the upper storey for an open-plan living and dining room with views out over the village rooftops. Different areas are loosely defined by the set backs in the walls, while balconies are slotted into the recesses.

To integrate a parking space for the family car, the architects added an extra wall and shelter beside the house's entrance.

Other interesting houses in Belgium include a residence in a former laundry building and a glass house with a sunken swimming pool. See more architecture in Belgium.

Photography is by Luc Roymans.

Here's a more detailed description from Graux & Baeyens Architecten:

House DZ in Mullem, Belgium

New construction of a private house + physiotherapist practice

The general concept of the building is responsive to the narrow plot and dense program as required by the clients. The brief was for both a family home and a physiotherapy practice.

Planning regulations required a minimum clear gap of four metres between the neighbours on both sides of the already narrow site, which meant that the building's organisation had to be very efficient with space.

The first step in working with these limitations was to switch the traditional dwelling program. The daylight functions (kitchen, dining, living & terraces) are located on the first floor with bedrooms and bathrooms located on the ground floor. This allowed for better views from the spaces on the first floor along with much more natural light entering the most commonly used spaces. The monolithic volume was then separated into smaller blocks which could shift to achieve maximum direct sunlight entering the building along with selecting specific and beautiful views.

The first floor is kept open plan but the shifting rooms also act to define and separate the different spaces without actually creating physical divisions. Each space is visually connected but has its own atmosphere due to the location of the windows and shifting of the blocks. By shifting the blocks on the first floor balconies are also created for the kitchen and lounge space.

The windows were carefully placed in the facade to capture surrounding views in particular the green areas to the east of the site and also to allow direct sunlight into the living spaces. The south facade is kept closed for privacy and to block the sun when its at its highest point.

On the south west facade the windows are placed perpendicular to the neighbours. This is once again to maximise the amount of natural light entering the building and to ensure privacy for both the neighbours and our own clients.

An efficient and sustainable volume is achieved due to the compact nature of the building along with its orientation to maximise natural sunlight wherever it's possible.

The buildings compactness is also evident with the efficiency of the program. The client requested a physiotherapy practice to be incorporated into the building. The ground floor is defined by a narrow corridor which has two stairs mirroring each other.

One stairs connects the bedrooms and bathrooms to the living areas on the first floor. The public stairs connect two physiotherapy practices one on the ground floor and one on the first floor. These stairs separate the private and public functions but also help to bring light into the ground floor and to open up the corridor space, creating an airy and pleasant entrance to the building.

The client also had a requirement for a car port and garden shed on the ground floor. These program requirements were used within the sites limitations to achieve their function and also define private external spaces.

The car port acts as a private and secluded entrance for the physiotherapy practice and the garden shed defines a terrace which is secluded from the neighbours and opens out into the garden. External steps lead up to the lounge area connecting the first floor living functions to the garden.

Address: Mullem, Belgium
Client: family DZ
Design: 2009-2010
Interior design: 2010-2012
Start construction: January 2011
Finished: February 2012
Site area: 810 sqm
Built area: 263 sqm
Design architect: Graux & Baeyens Architecten
Project architect: Graux & Baeyens Architecten

Materials:
- Facade Facade System on EPS insulation
- Construction concrete and brick
- Windows Aluminium

Above: concept diagram

Above: ground floor plan

Above: first floor plan

Above: cross-section

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Graux & Baeyens Architecten appeared first on Dezeen.

The building originally served three houses in the suburban area of Uccle and is positioned as an annex at the back. An access corridor stretches through the ground floor of one of these houses, creating an entrance from the street.

Swathes of black and blue coat the walls, floors and ceilings of the house as part of an artwork by Jean Glibert.

"The relationship between [the colours] is the point, not really the colour itself," Hinant told Dezeen. "The glossy black is not easily visible when you come into the space. Its reflection works like a mirror and changes all the time. The matte blue, a pure colour, defines a virtual volume linking the three levels."

A staircase winds up through the converted building, connecting a kitchen and dining room on the ground floor with a large ensuite bedroom on the first floor and a study in the attic.

A skylight added above the staircase helps to increase natural light in the building, while a glazed wall at the back opens the ground floor out to a garden and patio.

"This annex is located in the middle of a small paradise of greenery - well oriented and very quiet," added Hinant. "The poetry of this project comes from its simplicity and ordinary nature."

Other recently completed projects in Belgium include an ice rink designed to look like a whale and a performance centre with a camouflaged facade. See more architecture and interiors in Belgium.

Here's some more information from the architect:

Transforming a laundry in Uccle

The annex, attached to the rear of a group of three identical houses in the centre of the commune of Uccle, in the Brussels region, played host in the last century to a laundry. Its three storeys and the ground floor of the street-facing house are now the owners' family home.

The renovations tied the three floors together visually, improved the natural lighting and opened up views over the garden. A large open space was created at the centre of the annex, in the middle of which unfurls a staircase lit by skylights in the roof overhead.

Above: colour concept diagram

From the street, the view extends through a large bay window at the far end of the annex into the garden.

Above: site plan

By painting sections of the walls, floors and ceilings, the artist Jean Gilbert has created a mass of colour that transcends the various levels and engages with the building through reflections in the glossy black paintwork.

Above: ground floor plan - click above for larger image

The works, which were simple and inexpensive, were largely carried out by the owners themselves. They also provided an opportunity to improve the energy efficiency of the building, which will give rise to substantial savings in future.

Above: first floor plan - click above for larger image

Architect: Alain Hinant
Artist: Jean Glibert
Structural engineer: René Troisfontaines

Above: long section - click above for larger image

Sanitary, heating, thermal insulation: Bruno Hendrichs (Neologik)
Metal works: Philippe Gerstmans
Kitchen furniture: Alain Grousse (Menuiserie Marcel Adelaire)

Above: cross section

Location: Uccle, Belgium
Area: 120 sqm

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by Alain Hinant and Jean Glibert appeared first on Dezeen.

This glass house by Belgian architects Govaert & Vanhoutte has a 50-metre-long wall at the back and a sunken swimming pool at the front.

Located in one of the forests surrounding Bruges, the house is long and narrow and contains staggered storeys that descend below the ground.

The swimming pool is located at the lowest level and is tucked into a recessed corner of the building.

Doors leading into the house are as high as the walls and are difficult to spot when closed.

Inside, a long ramp slopes up from the main living and dining room towards children's bedrooms that are half a storey above, while cantilevered stairs lead down into a second living room and master bedroom.

Another ramp outside the building provides access to a car park below.

We've featured a few houses in the past that are almost entirely glazed. See one in Germany here and one in Sweden here.

Photography is by Tim Van de Velde.

Here's a little more information from Govaert & Vanhoutte:

Villa Roces

Villa Roces is integrated in an oblong terrain of about 70m long and 30m wide, situated in the forest surroundings of Bruges.

The concept consists of a 50 m long and a 4.20 m high wooden wall flanking 6 m wide glass box is disposed.

The house is built along a wall with the intention to meet the lack of light and reflect the presence of the forest, the verticality of the trees, etc.

The 54m long wall functions as a background for the transparant volume in front.

The wall is not only visible at the outside, but also continuously visible at the inside.

As the transparent volume is conceived as a box, the inside space is filled in with clearly defined boxes and volumes and incorporate the structural elements.

The glass box is indented at three sides:

• One to give access to the underground parking place
• One to develop the half underground swimming pool
• And one to give access, at the backside of the house, to the master bedroom and annex bathroom

The plan concept is very simple:

1. On the level of the garden there is the income, kitchen, dining room and fireplace situated. The kitchen can be separated from dining room with a big sliding door.

2. The bedroom section of the children and the master bedroom are situated one above the other and put in split-level with the living room which has one and a half height

3. In front of the master bedroom we have a secondary sitting room which spatial makes the conversion to the handled levels.

4. A slope guarantuees the connection between the living room and the bedroom section of the children.

5. By handling the explained levels and heights we could maintain a continuously horizontal box which was of main importance to be put in contrast to the verticality of the trees.

6. Under the living room and kitchen is the underground parking situated. To put this underground was also of main importance in order to reduce the build volume above the ground level, this in relation to the disposable space and give the house the visual impression of a big pavilion.

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Wooden sticks shield the facades of this house in Belgium by Ghent studio Architecten De Vylder Vinck Taillieu, while a tree bursts through the roof.

Screening exterior walls at both the front and back, the crisscrossing wooden batons feature integrated doorways.

Grey tiles clad the remaining two walls, the roof and even the chimney.

Clusters of missing tiles create openings for windows, while missing tiles on the roof give way for branches of the tree that is enclosed between the rear screen and the wall behind.

There are three storeys inside the house, where a chunky concrete frame is left exposed.

See more projects in Belgium by following this link.

Photography is by Filip Dujardin.

Here's some more information from Architecten De Vylder Vinck Taillieu:

House Bernheimbeuk at GB.

House.
A small site. A small house.
The small budget.

An even smaller house.
Square meters don’t matter.
Mechanics of living versus unexpected sense of space.

A small site. And huge trees.
Tree in house. Tree in room.
Room outside. The drawing.

Or, rather, the tree. Or, rather, the column.
That drawing.
Is the section of the column on which and around which the house rests.

A column that has become a tree. Among the other trees.
Structure. As starting point.
As finishing point. What is in between is a quest for making and imagining.

So how a column might be.
Might become.

Design architects: architecten de vylder vinck taillieu (Jan De Vylder, Inge Vinck, Jo Taillieu)

Design team: Jan De Vylder, Inge Vinck, Jo Taillieu, Lauren Dierickx, Gosia Olchowska

Structural Engineering: UTIL Structuurstudies cvba, Brussel

Shell of construction and finishing: Bouwonderneming Verfaillie bvba, Beernem, client themselves

Carpentry: Dirk Janssens bvba, Zaffelare:

Roofing: Ducla bvba, Beernem

m2: 99 m2

Budget: Private
Client: Private

Location: GB., Belgium

Design phase: 2009 – 2011 (delivered)

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De Vylder Vinck Taillieu appeared first on Dezeen.