Angleterre-Hollande Clustered Housing

Programme

Conversion and extension into flats, offices, common room and shared garden

Co-housing (or clustered housing) is emerging as an alternative way to become a homeowner despite the rising price of land. The Angleterre-Hollande clustered housing is the result of a collective private purchase of 17 different plots. The architects have succeeded in listening to, understanding and giving spatial form to the wishes of each of the 15 owners. They also became personally involved part-way through the project by becoming purchasers following a withdrawal. As both project owners and project managers, they were able to make ongoing in-depth adjustments to the project during the construction period and in particular to its central part, programmatically, spatially and architecturally. The project is located on a plot of land that crosses a block. It links neo-classical buildings on the Rue d’Angleterre with a modernist building on Rue Hollande. The architects have succeeded in a dual feat: they have opened up the heart of a block that was completely built up, and they have made maximum use of the existing street-facing buildings. The horizontal densification of plots, a phenomenon familiar to all Belgian cities (one extension generates another until the plot is completely filled) has been reversed. Here, densification has been achieved by freeing up the interior of the block to recover a maximum amount of open land and by prioritizing raising the height of the existing buildings facing onto the street. By raising the volumes, they have unified the road frontage while respecting the identity of the street. Despite the inevitable façadism on the Rue d’Angleterre side, the two houses have been combined internally to offer large apartments, all with private outdoor space. However, the ingenious and ample vertical circulation offers each inhabitant their own entrance. The now cleared heart of the block features a shared garden and a common room. It reflects the concept of community living that is central to the project.

Audrey Contesse