The interiors of the city blocks in the very centre of Brussels sometimes present landscapes that only melancholy people can enjoy. A world made up of bricks, coatings and concrete, a clumsy juxtaposition of shapes and styles, as well as an ideal vantage point for observing life at its most intimate, it is in this backroom of city (life) that the architecture practice Lhoas & Lhoas has designed a sensitive, uninhibited and playful project.

Putting things in order. This is the simple ambition behind the renovation/conversion of a house and an office building into accommodation. Located on the same L-shaped plot, at the corner of Rue des Grands Carmes and Rue de la Gouttière, the two buildings had come to form a single hybrid and disordered whole, swallowed up by the numerous extensions clogging up the interior of the city block. To begin with, the spatial and constructive structures specific to each building were identified and the intrusive volumes were razed in order to allow the interior of the block to breathe and provide the necessary light for the new homes. To preserve the autonomy of the building’s commercial ground floor, the main access is via the small house leading to the covered interior of the block. From here, a first sculptural staircase pierces the slab and gives access, thanks to a subtle play of curves, to the two outdoor vertical passageways that frame the rear façade. A square for the lift and a circle for the fire escape now serve the four flats via their winter garden. Luckily, the current economic climate has brought the expression of constructive rationality and its industrial aesthetic back into fashion. With raw concrete, expanded metal, polycarbonate and brightly coloured INP, the architects have managed to aestheticize the economy of means.