house VDV - GRAUX & BAEYENS architects

House VDV This single family house is located just outside the town of Ghent. The plot is part of a domain where us to be a castle destroyed in WWII. Parts of the surrounding wall is still standing and is a silent reminder of this history.

Photo by Filip Dujardin. Published on January 14, 2014.

House VDV appears simultaneously familiar and strange. The volume, consisting of one level with a pitched roof, alludes to familiar archetypes such as the rural homestead or barn. But at the same time the volume is broken up by large glass facades, so that the relationship is established with the surrounding trees and the listed castle wall.

Photo by Filip Dujardin. Published on January 14, 2014.

The mandatory implantation in the back of the plot ensures that the house is conceived as a pavilion. A garden-house with no front or rear, but with two identical facades and a 360 degree experience of the entire plot.

Photo by Filip Dujardin. Published on January 14, 2014.

The (non-treated copper) cladding gives the project a poetic impermanence, which is echoed in the reflection of the surrounding trees in the glass facades.