Woning en kantoor Bailleul

On one side, House B - a house with office for the Bailleul communication company in Ghent - is detached from the neighbouring house to leave room for a narrow existing passage way. Van Hee introduced a formal distinction between the front and rear buildings. The front building has a concrete structure, the rear one in steel. The front building has a ridge roof; the rear is a horizontal volume with an abundantly clear architectural structure divided into separate spaces. The flat roof is a green roof because the siting of the building means there is barely any greenery to be seen anywhere. The walls of the office building at the back are entirely in glass. The narrow space between the glass and the plot boundary forms a thick green façade.

The interior is independent of the form of the exterior. The whole can be adapted in the course of time in accordance with its own logic. The metal structure refers in the first place to the industrial shed that previously stood on this site, but also means the office space with the concrete cellar underneath can later just as easily be converted into anything, even a swimming pool. At the moment the metal structure is in the form of a pergola.

This text is based on an article by Chrisitan Kieckens, published in Architecture Review Flanders N°10. Radical Commonplaces. European Architectures from Flanders.