Client: Private
Team: Studio Jan Vermeulen
Budget: Private
Area: 155 m²
Design: 2018
Stage: Completed, March 2019
Photography: Piet-Albert Goethals
Metropolitan and Kaleidoscopic
The gradual renewal of the public spaces along Antwerp’s ‘Leien’ brings new life to a series of property renovations along this historic artery. The transformation from a former city wall to a city boulevard has made this linear space attractive once again as a residential environment. In a 19th-century townhouse, subdivided into different units, a large space has been converted into a generous bel-étage apartment for an elderly couple. The design reflects the kaleidoscopic and metropolitan nature of this central location in the harbour city by allowing elements from various architectural traditions to inform the design.
Generous Spatiality
The spatial organisation of the apartment combines a large atelier or loft-like space with a series of interconnected rooms, giving it generous spatiality and great freedom of movement for its occupants. Central to the design are two tall cabinets that organise the space. Located in the entrance hall, one cabinet conceals a wardrobe, toilet, and storage space behind four doors. A second cabinet, which includes the kitchen, separates the living areas from the bedroom, bathroom, and study.
A Quiet Background
With its soft colour scheme, the flat is designed to become a quiet background for city life, allowing the residents’ art and furniture collection to take centre stage. The 4-metre-high spaces feature oak flooring throughout, with tall, light-grey high skirting boards, wall panels, and room-high cabinets providing the spaces with a tranquil continuity. The vertical, flowing lines of the translucent curtains are mirrored in the cabinets, with their ‘Mackintosh-like’ profiling. The bathroom, connected to the bedrooms via two arched sliding doors, is constructed like a Roman bathhouse, with large, stacked stone tiles creating an intimate retreat within the apartment.
Soft and Surprising
Avoiding a ‘collage’ approach, the interior elements of the design blend together into a cohesive whole with a single, soft identity that still surprises at times. The richness of impressions generated by the kaleidoscopic city continues here in a softer way. The loft provides a spatial framework in which the cosmopolitan can find a retreat without denying their true nature.
