House SA, Aspelare
designers:
Stijn Ank
client:
privé
general contractor:
De Ketele-Verhaeghe bvba
location:
Ninove (Aspelare)
status:
completed in 2008
A concrete fold nestles in the ground in keeping with the structure of the gentle slope of the landscape. This is the first of a series of increasingly submerged folds that are directed towards the horizon of this landscape. Located under this fold is the house, an empty space contained by a glass envelope and orientated towards the landscape. The architecture of the fold has been condensed to it essential elements and forms the structure. The architecture is structure and vice versa. The structural elements of this house have been distilled to their essence and are part of the architecture.
The heavy, solid material of the fold defies gravity by rising up from the ground, supported by fine rectangular columns that are subtly placed behind the glass envelope. They also form the window frames, as a folded shadow of the long row of evenly spaced poplar trees. The window frames and the columns have been designed as a single element; these are not standard frames, but bespoke design in unison with the architecture and the structure. By fixing the glass profiles to the steel columns at mid-height — as a buckling shortener — the columns could be kept very slender. Simple steel bookshelves in the glass façade ensure the torsional rigidity of the glass envelope.
The quest to unify the structure and architecture into one reduces the construction to its basic principles in which all unnecessary elements have been removed. The supporting structure vanishes to enhance the empty space and is thus in direct contrast to the solid material of the protective fold.
client:
privé
general contractor:
De Ketele-Verhaeghe bvba
location:
Ninove (Aspelare)
status:
completed in 2008