SPECIMEN - GEM

169.GEM

Title	SAINT-SERVAIS
Status	completed
Program	residential
Area	1000 m2
Duration	2018 - 2022
Location	Saint-Servais, Belgium
Coordinates	50.472488, 4.851080
Owner	GEMBA
Budget	1.559.460€ HTVA
Partners	TS Construct B solutions Nicolas da Silva Lucas photographer

Designed on the basis of a co-creation process with the inhabitants. The building houses mixed functions: housing, offices and a large area devoted to shared community spaces (garden, shared kitchen, shared guest room, etc.)The building is located on a plot set back from the largely green street. The ground floor is designed as a base alternating large glazed surfaces and brick walls that play with perspectives and visually enlarge the space. It mainly houses the professional premises and the common areas which open widely onto the common garden. The accommodations are built in CLT (crossed laminated timber) and are designed on two levels. An open-air passageway, on the east side, distributes access and allows you to look for views, they thus benefit from an unobstructed view and ideal sunshine and display very good energy performance. The flat roof is a terrace from which the apartments benefit and which gives a panoramic view of the city. All the dwellings not only have private functions (kitchen, bedrooms, living room, roof terrace and balcony) but also benefit from common functions which allow great modularity in uses and promote exchanges within the grouped habitat. . The balance in the private sphere and common spaces is respected, the articulation is obvious. The fact that the apartments are located on the upper floors makes it possible to clearly differentiate the functions.Today, it is important to re-think the way we live (in the city). The philosophy being to agree to reduce the size of one's individual accommodation by compensating with shared spaces, which not only allows oneself the freedom to have, or not, more space(s), to save on the fact that these spaces, which are used less often, have a cost borne by several co-owners, but also, and this is certainly the most important, to create links, to energize interactions, to create a place that promotes exchanges, mutual aid, sharing.

BELGIAN TIMBER CONSTRUCTION AWARDS 2024 Shortlisted

BELGIAN BUILDING AWARDS 2022 Shortlisted

WALLONIA GRAND PRIZE OF ARCHITECTURE 2021 Winner

Designeon the basis of a co-creation process with the inhabitants. The building houses mixed functions: housing, offices and a large area devoted to shared community spaces (garden, shared kitchen, shared guest room, etc.)

The building is located on a plot set back from the largely green street. The ground floor is designed as a base alternating large glazed surfaces and brick walls that play with perspectives and visually enlarge the space. It mainly houses the professional premises and the common areas which open widely onto the common garden. The accommodations are built in CLT (crossed laminated timber) and are designed on two levels. An open-air passageway, on the east side, distributes access and allows you to look for views, they thus benefit from an unobstructed view and ideal sunshine and display very good energy performance. The flat roof is a terrace from which the apartments benefit and which gives a panoramic view of the city. All the dwellings not only have private functions (kitchen, bedrooms, living room, roof terrace and balcony) but also benefit from common functions which allow great modularity in uses and promote exchanges within the grouped habitat. . The balance in the private sphere and common spaces is respected, the articulation is obvious. The fact that the apartments are located on the upper floors makes it possible to clearly differentiate the functions.

Today, it is important to re-think the way we live (in the city). The philosophy being to agree to reduce the size of one's individual accommodation by compensating with shared spaces, which not only allows oneself the freedom to have, or not, more space(s), to save on the fact that these spaces, which are used less often, have a cost borne by several co-owners, but also, and this is certainly the most important, to create links, to energize interactions, to create a place that promotes exchanges , mutual aid, sharing.