In Merelbeke, near Ghent, a family home designed by OFFICE has been built on the site of a former shoe factory. The existing building is defined by a series of solid brick walls arranged in parallel. The residential project is an extension of the existing space, dictated by the repetition of this system of four parallel walls that delineate the intervening spaces.

The house’s thick brick walls organise the sequence of adjoining rooms, whose doors are positioned along a central axis. The layout of the rooms and their volumes thus align with the scale of the surrounding neighbourhood, punctuated by a variety of houses. The pitched roofs of the rooms at the ends of the structure, enclosed within the massive brick walls, also help to play with the scale of the houses in this residential neighbourhood. Indeed, the height of the walls increases gradually to match that of the existing factory.

The sequence of rooms begins with the master bedroom, topped by a gable roof. Next, the entrance leads to an office and a bathroom, whose walls curve to resist the force of the house’s central axis. The central living area is a kitchen with an outdoor terrace. Continuing on from this are two children’s bedrooms with a playroom on the mezzanine. This sequence of rooms culminates in a light-filled conservatory, contrasting with the imposing, thick brick walls.

The solid walls extend beyond the boundaries of the rooms, defining outdoor spaces and terraces. Thus, the boundaries between interior and exterior dissolve, particularly thanks to the large sliding glass wall in the central room. The industrial aesthetic of bricks, steel joinery and metal roofing sits alongside the contemporary feel of this accordion-style glass wall, which seems to fade into the background.