Hoekwoningen Kleine Kerkstraat

The architects Tijl Vanmeirhaeghe, Carl Bourgeois and Kris Coremans were selected to design several new corners in Ledeberg. In their selection dossier they compare corner buildings with bookends: take them away and the row of houses between them falls down. So let the corners play their supporting part to the full, and give them a distinct presence in the fabric of the street. In their first gesture, on the corner of Kleine Kerkstraat and Hoefijzerstraat, the architects considerably shortened a triangular plot by cutting off the point. This has not made the bookend any less strong. The house they designed is adjacent to a new neiz the building literally and figuratively gives the place air. On both sides of the corner, the architects extended the roofs of the terraced houses over the corner plot. The resulting profile of the new, broad, end elevation, with its rising and falling pointed gables, makes the gesture explicitly visible: part of the plot is offered to the neighbourhood as a gift.

This text is based on an article by Philippe Viérin, published in Flanders Architectural Review N°12: Tailored Architecture.