Description
This family dwelling is the result of the complete transformation of a 1920s Brussels row house. The original house (whose architect is unknown) displayed two distinctive features of this housing type: a half-sunken basement leading to a garden half a storey below street level, and a three-room enfilade on the ground floor with little natural light in the central room. The renovation tackles these two limitations by transforming the basement into the main living space and removing its ceiling in the last two rooms of the enfilade, producing a double-height volume of almost 7 m. This generates a direct connection to the garden and brings light into the central room. In this space, the mantelpiece of the former ground floor is preserved, hanging in the air. On the garden side, a hanging study floats above the dining room, as a memory of the house’s past annexes. The entrance hall leads now directly to the garden level. On the upper floors, where the bedrooms and bathrooms are found, the original layout has been maintained more faithfully. The front façade was renovated and preserves a very classic aspect. The back façade has been entirely revised. The first level is made of recuperated bricks while the upper floors are clad with zinc.
Exterior view
Rear facade
Interior view
Originally published in: Gérald Ledent, Alessandro Porotto, Brussels Housing. Atlas of Residential Building Types, Birkhäuser, 2023.