Rue Saint-Anne
We were invited to submit proposals for the alteration of an existing home, of two structural engineers, in the Belgian city of Wavre.
The brief prioritised the introduction of more natural light into what was a series of tightly woven and occasionally cramped spaces, that resulted from a series of incremental and uncoordinated additions to the original building.
With sufficient space identified in the existing building, the proposal removed all non original elements, prior to then reintroducing them in the form of a single new volume to the rear of the building, that was orientated so as to benefit from natural daylight.
Within the existing house, a series of vertical interventions introduced daylight to the centre of the plan, while also helping to spatially and practically link volumes within the house that were otherwise removed from one another.
At ground floor level an uninterrupted, stepped, corridor that spanned the length of there building allowed the rooms leading from it to serve their intended function more efficiently. The intention was to help avoid what was originally a need to continually pass through rooms disturbing their inhabitants and reducing their functional capacity.