Zwaluw

In a row of continuous buildings, the building line suddenly shifts to make room for an elongated market square. This shift creates valuable corner plots. New perspectives emerge, along the full length of the street, for instance. Corner buildings gain multiple façades. They can orient themselves to the sun, or to the life on the square. On one side of the square, this potential has long been realised by an architecturally historic building. On the other side, it went misunderstood: three non-descript terraced houses were built, their oversized blind façades bearing the weight of missed opportunities. They are now dressed in advertisements, in an attempt to lend them some meaning. The City of Harelbeke wisely decided to demolish these houses, making way for a carefully considered corner building, a gateway: something urban and ambitious, a clear marker of arrival in the city, while at the same time responding to a fragmented context of smaller surrounding buildings. The many swallows that once lived in the demolished houses also need a place to return to.

A number of apartments are to be built. Car parking is needed too, one and a half spaces per unit. Also: urban greenery. The site narrows towards the rear, but continues and continues until it eventually meets a quiet street via a narrow passageway.

The large, distinctly urban volume wants to rescale itself, without shrinking or disappearing. Several operations act as handshakes with the surroundings. Like the neighbouring buildings, it features a sloped roof, but more fragmented. Two ridgelines with a valley gutter in between: the roof dances, following the jagged geometry of the site. The volume that was cut away returns twice as dormers. The neighbour’s ridge line is respected. Keep the peace.

But the gutter line is also addressed, this time through a façade detail that hints at the idea of a high plinth. Across the surface of brick patterns, a different bond above and below the plinth line, openings are placed. Their dimensions match the average size of openings in the neighbouring buildings. Sometimes the opening is a window. Sometimes it is an indoor terrace, with claustra infills. Sometimes it is closed off, set slightly deeper within the wall. Above the front-facing windows: round bulbs beneath the eaves, swallows transporting mud, the nesting season has begun.

Cars drive half a level down to park beneath the building. Tucked out of sight, they leave the remainder of the site free for greenery. Half down also means half up: the first residential floor sits slightly elevated above street level, buffering the noise of the busy regional road. Entry is organised via a quiet side street. There are enough façades, after all. A gateway, a canopy, and a pergola mark the transition. Then you enter the circulation core. On each floor, apartments are designed with openings onto multiple façades. They stretch crosswise across the plot, gaining better views and more daylight.

The tiny house follows a similar logic. It notches back, cuts away at itself, and adds volume elsewhere. The compact dwelling is staggered with half-levels, with a spiral staircase that stops at every opportunity.

The market traders were back early. Vegetables up for auction. The rotisserie spinning. Someone has tied bags overflowing with leeks to the handlebars of their bicycle. They round the corner, brushing along the plinth, past people already seated at the terrace, past the gate, through the greenery, towards the house with the spiral staircase.