Woning DC II

The home does not consist of a main building with a collection of outbuildings. Instead, the auxiliary functions provided an opportunity to create two volumes that have the same form as the house. They contain a garage, a barn and a multipurpose room. The whole ensemble comprises three barns set at right-angles to each other around a farmyard. It is as if their essential function were to create the yard. They do not form a square. Following the traces of the old farm complex, they are slightly rotated and offset in relation to each other. It is this sort of subtle change that shapes the identity and the layering. Entry to the complex takes place in stages through a forecourt and a covered passage. After this, one crosses the yard to the entrance to the house. Via a porch incorporated into the building, the entrance leads into a passage along a glass wall that looks out onto the yard. Although the other two barns (which take the form of abstract wooden volumes with ridge roofs) are closed, the house has several well-considered openings that frame the landscape.

Author: Caroline Voet. This text has been published in the Architecture Review Flanders N°11. Embedded Architecture.