driearchitecten . photos: © Klaas Verdru . + archdaily
For this project, we built upon a place with a rich history. We were inspired by Le Corbusier, who elevates functions and redefines the ground floor as a service level. Therefore, on the ground floor, we accommodated the essential functions: a space for cars and bicycles, an entrance hall, a cloakroom, a laundry room, a utility room, storage, office space, and an indoor garden.
The first floor is reserved for sleeping and bathing, while the second floor houses the living spaces, with expansive terraces. The focus was on maximizing the use of sun and light, given the northern orientation of the existing house. The new top floor opens up to the south to make the most of natural sunlight.
This architectural intervention is conceived as a palimpsest: a subtle balance between reuse and renewal, where the original monastic atmosphere is preserved, and the spaces are revitalized. The project creates a new world atop a rich history, with a careful harmony between preservation and innovation. Existing techniques were reused, where necessary supplemented with new technologies to make intensive living and working in an urban context possible.
Everything valuable was preserved to the maximum. A green garden with chickens brings a touch of rural life to the city. The house, with three facades – a square facade, a street facade, and a garden facade – offers a unique experience. On the square side, the intervention is very subtle and almost invisible, allowing the church to stand out. On the street side, the overhanging volume is very much present and forms a surprising dialogue with the old church facade, bringing an unexpected tension to the streetscape.
From the inside, the presence of the church is very tangible, almost touchable, and part of the space itself. Therefore, we chose to make the volume completely transparent in glass, allowing the light, the view, and the history to merge into a unique whole. This project symbolizes an intense symbiosis between the past and the future, city and green, and history and modernity.
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