Technical sheet
Read moreRead less- location
- Gent
- date
- 2017 - 2018
- client
- private
- renovation surface
- 30 m2
- budget
- small budget
- study partners
- Mouton (stability), 2B-safe (energy and safety)
- executors
- Longeval (roofworks), Andersconstruct (steel and glass interior elements), Elias Techniek (electrical works), Maarten Warnez (plasterworks)
- As seen in:
- Gent Cement, Dimension, ...
- Photos
- Johnny Umans and Marge
- Status
- Executed
Weifelwand
Renovation of a pitched roof and attic-rooms of a row-house with the use of doubtful borders
Winter came again. Classic problem: a not-insulated roof in bad condition with underneath a number of dusky, low spaces. The roof sags even more than can be expected of an old purlin roof. New roof with new expectations. One wants to accommodate guests there, linger in the drawing studio and store stuff like is to be expected of an attic.
The storing and sleeping and lingering usually doesn’t happen at the same time. Preferably rooms without walls then, let’s do something more ambiguous, let the space continue flowing. Beneath the triangle a mezzanine floor is suspended, aligned with the staircase underneath. Past the stairs, steel and glass partition, past that a parked curtain, past that someone’s reading a magazine. On the other side of the stairs, someone draws an animal on some paper. The evening light gets filtered through the poplars and scattered on the field of the space. The curtain closes.
The Forgotten Floor
A woman who works from home, creates beautiful illustrations, and loves to host guests has been living for some time in a small terraced house in the north of Ghent. Her life is larger than the house. There should be more space for all that life to unfold: for an unfinished illustration to linger on the table, for a guest to stay overnight when it gets late, but also for things that are not yet known.
Fortunately, at the top of the house there is still an entire floor beneath the roof. One of those typical forgotten floors that was never included in the earlier renovations and now serves as an oversized attic. But life sometimes needs more room than the things that come with it. The decision is made to fully rework the top floor. The old roof is removed and replaced with a new one; fit for modern living, both in terms of energy and flexible use of space.
More with Less
The woman’s budget is not unlimited. We have to focus on what truly matters. A few key accents are non-negotiable; everything else is designed to be simple and affordable to execute.
The material palette is honest and modest. The roof shell is clad in OSB panels instead of drywall. The joints between the OSB boards were precisely planned in advance. The window reveals around the skylights are finished in white-lacquered MDF; white reflective frames in a field of wood chips. An affordable, achievable detail that still elevates the visual quality.
Shifting Boundaries
When no guests are staying over, the top floor should feel as open and bright as possible. So, flexible boundaries are introduced. Ones that can divide or connect spaces in different ways. The staircase forms the first threshold, practically dividing the space into three zones: one by the front façade, one at the rear, and one beneath the ridge.
Luxury in the Details
Instead of high-end steel profiles, the glass wall is built using standard L-profiles. The glass is clamped between them resulting in four profiles per mullion. To make this visually lighter, the outer two profiles are intentionally given wider flanges, creating a refined shadow joint. The profiles are finished with a rough, grainy powder coat.
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