Sejaca House: Modern brick architectural project integrated into the landscape

The Casa Tomas & Katrien / Atelier Vens Vanbelle project is a building designed as a restrained and simple volume, reminiscent of an old workshop or a small-scale classic industrial structure.

The structure is made of brick, which gives the building individuality, creating the impression that it has always been in this place. This forms an interesting dialogue with the surrounding buildings (including the neighbor's solid wall), prompting reflection on which building appeared first.

The building's volume is intentionally kept compact and simple, yet care was not spared for the quality of the spatial experience. An additional advantage is the significantly enlarged garden space, which positively impacts the quality of life.

The method of bricklaying references 19th-century industrial buildings, utilizing a layered brick pattern, large windows, downspouts as architectural elements, and other details.

The facade facing the street has no windows, creating an abstract image in the public space. On the other facades, large openings ensure abundant natural light intake. The interior walls are also made of exposed brick, spreading the workshop atmosphere inside. This feeling is enhanced by the choice of flooring (clay tiles), metal profiles, and wooden details. Despite being a new structure, the construction method gives the house the look of a lived-in and cozy home.

The interior is striking, especially due to the use of materials and the project's design. A 45-degree corner on the plan provides several unexpected elements. For example, a large flowerbed is located in the center of the plan, separating the living room from the rest of the social area. The living room is also situated several steps higher, from where the staircase to the upper floor begins. Above the diamond-shaped void space, a row of dormer windows allows a large amount of natural light in, making the house very bright and pleasant.

The upper floor has a clear concept: it features four identical bedrooms lined with wood veneer panels. The remaining space between the bedrooms is covered with soft carpet, which, combined with the brick walls, forms a pleasant multi-functional space.

An iron structure attached to the rear facade and covered with transparent corrugated tile emphasizes the industrial character of the building and forms a pleasant covered terrace.

The same material selection is maintained on the back part of the plot, where a brick structure serving as a storage area for the garden, bicycle parking, and covered terrace is erected. A light and transparent covering has also been added here so that this annex and the house form a logically connected whole, where the materials provide a unique and pleasant experience in the garden.

Energy supply is designed to be maximally autonomous (water management, heat pump, solar panels, etc.). The result is a comfortable and modern home with a unique identity that harmoniously fits into the urban environment and is fully oriented towards the quality of life.

The design team described the Paredes Forest House as a residence conceived for a couple and their child, situated on an unusually shaped lot, resembling a crab's claw. The terrain features a green strip to the south and an energy transmission tower located to the east.

Instead of forcing a single directive or uniformity in response to the site's characteristics or the urban surroundings, the project adopted multiple approaches that directly engage with the terrain itself. Utilizing a system of pillar-walls rising at various angles, the walls were designed to operate together, integrating directional and distance deviations in space, which creates a transition area between the urban environment and daily routine.

In urban architecture, the boundaries between privacy and openness, between the interior and the exterior, are often simplified by modifying delimiting surfaces, such as windows and exterior walls. However, in this project, the intention was not merely to adjust these relationships by opening or closing limits, but rather to reconfigure the interaction with the city through the superposition of spatial distances and internally created orientations.

By establishing a situation where views are obstructed, yet what lies beyond remains perceptible, the architecture generates an opening that is neither completely sealed nor immediately comprehensible.

The central concept of the project resides in the combination of pillar-walls—elements of intermediate scale between a pillar and a wall—and slabs, which were molded into triangular shapes due to the terrain's geometry. By placing the pillar-walls at the central point of each edge of these triangular slabs, the space avoids having a strictly defined contour, resulting in constant undefined areas due to the misalignment and overlap of the slabs.

Although the pillar-walls segment the space, they do not isolate it; on the contrary, they allow atmosphere, presence, and views to disseminate, lending depth and tension to the environment.

These pillar-walls transcend a merely structural function, acting as spatial 'axes' that subtly guide the flow of air, movement, and lines of sight. However, they do not converge into a rigid or uniform grid; small variations in density and orientation introduce rhythm and depth both in the section and the plan, allowing the space to develop a sense of territory without feeling confined, from which living spaces progressively emerge.

The triangular slabs are also not leveled on a single plane, presenting small height differences and configuring themselves in multiple levels. These level changes do not aim to fragment the space, but function, along with the pillar-walls, as structural variations that modulate bodily distance, presence, and lines of sight. By avoiding a clear hierarchical division between floors, daily life expands in the dimension of the section.

In this dense urban context of Tokyo, the house incorporates multiple layers of depth and orientations internally, rather than displaying a clear and easily legible external expression. This condition, which is protected without being closed and open without being rigidly defined, is achieved through the interaction between the pillar-walls and the slabs. The structure defines the space, and the space, in turn, accommodates life, constituting a three-dimensional residential landscape that rises from a set of walls.