The required offset from the building line provided a great opportunity for an elevated private city garden surrounding this modern penthouse located on the top of an apartment complex in eastern Belgium. A grassy path meanders around the living unit creating a relation with the nature in the city on a higher level. The plan of the apartment has been inspired by this arrangement and resulted in setting the dialogue between the outside and the inside as a core concept for the layout.
The circulation area has been distributed along the external walls to maximise the amount of light inside and to emphasise the relationship with the external 360 degree garden. With the open perimeter of the interior, the central part has been dedicated to spaces that are less dependant on the incidence of light. As the concept design is based on the honest and raw materials, natural stone and dark timber can be found in every corner of the interior. The colour palette has been kept warm with brown, grey & beigerelated tones to enhance a cosy feel and to provide a cheerful yet restful environment.
The external cladding of the building’s elevation in Italian limestone comes back in the joinery inside to reinforce the link between the exterior and the interior. The details are kept simple in aim to reach minimalist objectivity, stripping away the layers of ornaments to create clean perspectives and frame the outside. Our aim was to create a generous one bedroom apartment with an office space which has a %exibility of being transformed into two bedroom apartment with a private bathroom for each room in the future. Currently the office space can be closed off with a large sliding wall cladded in cherry veneer.
The internal scheme didn’t include a lot of internal walls in our concept, so we decided to use joinery as the space de&ning element. The entrance to one of the bathrooms is integrated into one of the closet doors and a massive sliding wall in veneer divides the office room and the bedroom, giving it %exibility in the layout. Cherry veneer show up on the internal core with a number of softly integrated sliding and hinged doors.
