Location                          Papegaaistraat, Ghent
Programme                   Community Centre, Housing
Status                              Completed
Type                                 Academic Research
Year                                   2023

HOUSE

An In-Depth Exploration of Small-Scale
Public Space Along the Street’s Edge.

By carefully reconstructing Ghent’s Papegaaistraat at a 1:33 scale, the project begins with an exploration of the existing urban fabric — a research method that forms the foundation for the design of a new corner building, one that is deeply embedded in and responsive to its context. Designed to both inform and be informed by the physical and social fabric of its surroundings, the building provides spaces that enable interaction and collective presence to emerge. On a relatively small residential scale such as this, there is also room to experiment with biobased materials and unconventional detailing, making the project both a contextual and a material investigation.

It often seems we try to achieve an architectural aesthetic completely independent from materials.
Façade cladding is used to hide all actual building engineering. In doing so, we lose sight of functional
material use and its expression. Instead of faking, layering, and hiding construction layers, let’s go back to using dry wood connections, for example. Instead of gluing everything, try to look for ways to bond materials in such a way that they can be taken apart again. Let’s just show our nodes and bonds, let’s be brutalist about it. By being honest in our architectural expressions, we can achieve simplicity. This project tries to be an example for exactly these ambitions.

As a call towards honest building, to simply showing our nodes and bonds, a monolithic building system has been chosen. The façade consists of a lime-hemp structure of 60 cm thick with a wooden load-bearing structure, visible in the interior. The integration of the material use and architectural expression can be experienced in every interior space. With split-levels and a central vertical core —extending into every room as a furniture piece — the use of the space remains highly flexible and adaptable.

The building could be imagined to have a local public function (such as a café, exhibition space, office,
workspace, etc.) through all floors, as well as a mix with more residential functions (such as private studios and ateliers).