OFFICE 305

This family house is part of a masterplan for a former shoe factory in a town of Merelbeke near Ghent. The existing building, which is set to transform into a craft micro-brewery, is defined by a set of parallel brick walls. The housing scheme was developed as a hypothetical extension of the factory by repetition of these walls. Positioned in the middle of a narrow empty plot, four massive parallel brick walls are defining the spaces in-between. The height of these walls is gradually increasing from the street side until they reach the height of the factory building walls in the back. The enfilade of rooms and outdoor terraces, interrupted by shifting walls, have doors positioned on a single axis. The sequence of spaces starts with a small aluminium-clad bicycle storage, and a master bedroom, with a gable roof. Further on there is the entrance terrace aligned with the study room and a bathroom. The central room is the living area with a kitchen that opens to an outdoor terrace, and in the back there are two more children bedrooms with a playroom in the mezzanine. The rooms in-between walls are covered with skillion roofs, while he house ends with a gable-style greenhouse structure.