Squeezed onto an angular plot between a road and a little irrigation channel, this property near the Belgian village of Knokke comprises a timber-clad ground floor with a glass box resting on best (+ slideshow).
House Graafjansdijk was designed by Bruges workplace Govaert & Vanhoutte, whose previous tasks include a minimal concrete and glass cemetery pavilion and a factory with walls of concrete, metal mesh and glass.
It gives a home for the owner of a neighborhood estate agents.
The property requires its identify from a dike built in the ninth century to safeguard areas of France and Belgium from North Sea storm surges.
The only remaining part of the Graaf Jansdijk is now a road that extends east from Knokke along a single side of the internet site, which is bordered on its opposite edge by a narrow ditch.
Govaert & Vanhoutte was asked to create a present day four-bedroom family members home on this narrow plot, making the most of views towards the farmland on both side while delivering privacy from the adjacent road.
A single-storey volume containing the bedrooms occupies the entirety of the site at street degree.
Its frontage is clad in fence-like timber boards that kind an impervious surface, although the elevation hunting onto the fields is mostly glazed.
“A first selection we manufactured was to integrate all night functions on ground level, closed in direction of the street and open in direction of the corn discipline,” architect Michael Lammens told Dezeen.
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“This produces a very intimate character. The only way to do this was to practically totally occupy the terrain on the initial degree.”
Weatherbeaten wooden cladding wraps about a garage positioned at the narrower end of the plot. On the side bounded by the water, the bedrooms lengthen all around the edges of a modest inner garden.
Stairs lead from an entrance set back somewhat from the street to a transparent volume containing the kitchen and living space. This smaller upper storey is raised over the level of the dike to offer views across the fields on either side.
“In this way a robust horizontal plinth carries a glass lookout,” Lammens extra. “This horizontal character was essential, integrating the property in its residential environment.”
The timber cladding extends one particular metre beyond the ceiling height of the ground floor to form a railing close to a massive decked roof terrace.
A full-height sliding glass door connects the dining location with this terrace, which is lined on its opposite edge by a glass balustrade that assures an uninterrupted see across the corn field.
The material palette utilised for the building’s exterior is continued internally, with the identical weathered timber boards utilized to walls on the two ranges.
Black tadelakt plaster flooring gives a tactile surface that is complemented by the raw metal used for the kitchen countertop and dining table.
White lime paint applied to the remaining walls and ceilings gives these surfaces a softer matt finish.
Photography is by Tim Van de Velde.
Web site program – click for bigger image 
Basement floor strategy – click for greater image 
Ground floor prepare – click for larger picture 
Initial floor plan – click for greater image 
Cross section – click for more substantial picture 
Long segment – click for bigger image 
