Article source: AST77 bvba architects and engineers
In Hakendover, a rural village in Belgium a single storey family home is constructed providing quality living between a busy road and the lush Flemish fields.
The building is hard and aloof in comparison to the public domain, but cordial to it residents and visitors. It provides an answer to the challenges of the environment and the wishes of the residents. The biggest challenge was to make a house as compact as possible, yet to keep the spatial cohesion and interaction. The result is a flexible, highly detailed, tailor made concept where the residents can live throughout the different stages of their lives.
The house is divided in a northern oriented and close symmetrical U-shape with three bedrooms, a bathroom, shower and storage space. In the open T-space we find the living area, kitchen and transparent patio with corridor. The patio provides the central part of the house with light and connects the surrounding spaces Other spaces get an abundance of daylight though the fully glazed back facade and the footlight window at the street side. Artificial light is hardly needed.
We want to preserve the quality of the existing green site as much as possible.
The new building has to be spatially with the small scaled residential street and the current residential nursing home.
“Groenhof” emerges on the street side by pulling the central part of the building 14m backwards. This way the main entrance of the building becomes clearly visible.
The complexity of the volumetry of the building gives us more variation in the orientation of the façade and control of the light. The arising corners give the possibility to make the building more open to the neighbourhood.
At the edge of a rural town lies a vacant plot, overlooking a small valley where there used to be a battlefield in the 17th Century. the new house tries not to block the views of the passers-by: all walls are placed in the direction of the valley, so that all the views stay unblocked.
At the center of the house is a hole, turned into a patio. the house whirls up like a snake on itself. all floors lead to the next level : there are no inside walls. every space had views throughout the house in a way that everything stays connected.
Materials try to blend the house in its surroundings : often there is a grey fog coming from the valley. the house is built in grey concrete, grey clay stone and old Barnwood. from far away the light grey volume blends, but on its approach the different materials and textures appear.
This compact house in a quiet neighborhood in Tienen . Proposed by the architects vision has led to a remarkable architectural appearance that attracts attention in the street but whose shape remains very simply.
Thanks to the total housing concept one could offer an answer to the limited budget and the not so favorable orientation of the land. To exploit the southwestern orientation to the street as possible, the architects swapped the “front and back “. That way they have a terrace and a garden , not to the rear of the house , but on the street laid out so that the living areas could be targeted. To the southwest in this logic to the traditional location of the areas to rotate, the front door to the back of the housing is provided.
Article source: AST77 architects and engineers b.vba
As a spin-off of IMEC, Photovoltech nv. became one of the most important European producer of multicrystal- line silicon solar cells. Photovoltech was founded in 2001 and has three major shareholders namely Total, GDF Suez and IMEC.
After the first years of investments in the solar cells development and an industrial expansion, the company decided in 2007 to install, on their own business estate, the first electrical production photovoltaic unit. The challenge that was given to the design team, was to create a construction for this photovoltaic production unit on the same innovative manner such as Photovoltech does with the production of their own solar cells.
Back in 2006, architect engineer Peter Van Impe was searching for a place to accomodate his newly founded architects and engineers office, AST 77 architects and engineers office. He stumbled upon a post-war townhouse located at the edge of the city park of Tienen. After some research this lot, of just 60 square meters, turned out to be suited for construction. Although others never considered this small piece of land to be a usable building lot, Peter transformed it into a spacious house/office by upholding the less is more principle.
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