FORM / STUDIO

07 / 12Antwerp, BelgiumResidential2024

House MM

A low flat-roofed concrete house with an open room in its centre, seen across a lawn.

One concrete roof, twenty-two metres long, on two closed volumes. The room between them has no front or back: it is glass on both sides and open to the lawn.

Location
Antwerp, Belgium
Year
2024
Project type
Residential
Status
Completed
Surface area
182 m²
Scope
New build, landscape, fixed interiors
Structure
Bureau T. (fictional)
Landscape
Studio H. (fictional)

Fictional project. Photographs are illustrative stock and do not show a building by FORM Studio.

Response

The plot is a long clearing of lawn between old oaks. Rather than choose which way the house should face, it faces both. Bedrooms and study are in one closed volume, kitchen and dining in the other, and the room between them is simply the place where the lawn passes under the roof.

With the structure doing all the architectural work, the interior needed almost nothing else: screed floors, a few fixed pieces of timber and the view.

D01Roof slab over three volumesAxonometricIllustrative drawing
Roof slab over three volumes: illustrative axonometricAxonometric of a single long concrete roof slab resting on two closed volumes, with the through room left open between them.
D03Section A–ASectionIllustrative drawing
Section A–A: illustrative sectionIllustrative section cut through the building, 3.1 metres to the highest point.Through room+0.00+3.1005 m
A dim concrete room with a grey sofa, open to a bright garden through full-height glass.
Fig. 1 Through room. Sliding glass stacks back behind the concrete wall on warm days.
D02Ground floorPlanIllustrative drawing
Ground floor: illustrative floor planIllustrative plan of about 20.00 by 9.00 metres containing Bedroom, Bathroom, Study, Through room, Kitchen, Utility, Dining. The numbered key beside the drawing lists each room.12345672.502.508.004.003.0020.005.004.00AAN05 m
  1. 1Bedroom23.8 m²
  2. 2Bathroom9.2 m²
  3. 3Study9.2 m²
  4. 4Through room70.0 m²
  5. 5Kitchen18.9 m²
  6. 6Utility14.1 m²
  7. 7Dining26.7 m²

The concrete was cast for the house to weather, not for the photograph.

Angled concrete columns casting long shadows on a concrete floor.
Fig. 2 Columns at the east end, late sun.
A concrete staircase in grey light with a strip of daylight above it.
Fig. 3 Stair to the plant room and roof.
A board-marked concrete wall in shade with a sharp diagonal shadow.
Fig. 4 Board-marked concrete. The grain is the shuttering’s.
A view along a concrete ledge above a pale tiled floor.
Fig. 5 Screed meets the terrace with no threshold.
Smooth fair-faced concrete walls and a stair soffit with a regular grid of tie holes.
Fig. 6 Fair-faced wall above the plant-room stair.

Material schedule

  1. M01

    Board-marked concrete

    Roof slab, volume walls, stair

    Cast against rough-sawn spruce. The boards were used twice, so the second pour is slightly softer than the first.

  2. M02

    Fair-faced concrete

    Interior walls, service core

    Smooth shuttering, tie holes kept in a regular grid and left unfilled.

  3. M03

    Ground screed

    All floors

    Pale aggregate, ground back after the heating was commissioned. No thresholds between inside and out.