Raamwerk . photos: © Stijn Bollaert
The Mgr. Stillemansstraat was developed in the 1920s and 1930s in art-deco style. The house was built as a single-family home with a small-scale textile factory for knitwear behind it. As a result of this dense program, almost the entire plot was built up. A first intervention was making outdoor space and light.
The demolition of some mediocre additions makes a pleasant variation between the house, a double-height studio and two enclosed city-gardens. By partially organizing the living space on the first floor, the footprint of the house can be reduced and there is room for a garden. Each garden has its own atmosphere: a lush Mediterranean garden and a more hidden rose garden as an overgrown ruin of the workshop.
The house itself has a solid basic layout of two interconnected rooms on each floor with a view from front to rear. A thin, slender extension in wood and aluminum opens the facade, and forms a bright addition to the classic layout of the main house.
The extension functions as a vertical winter garden. This creates additional places that have a different relationship with the garden on each floor: a dining area in the shade of a fig tree, a reading corner at the crown of a palm tree. Just as this is a recurring theme in the art-deco period, the space expresses a desire for exoticism away from the everyday life.
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Single family house Location: Sint-Niklaas Year: 2018 – 2021 Team: Gijs De Cock, Dorien Van Doorsselaer icw Jan Minne Gardenist Status: Built Pictures: Stijn Bollaert
