Sea Side Apartment / Ooze Architects

Architects: Ooze Architects
Location: Knokke-Heist, Belgium
Project: Holiday Apartment for a Dutch art collector
Area: 150 sqm
Team: OOZE, Eva Pfannes, Sylvain Hartenberg, Mauricio Freyre, Rene Sangers
Consultant: Mobile Kitchen / Tiles: Maxime Ansiau – Artist
Dining-table: OOZE & Vincent de Rijk – Designer
Curtain: Erick Klarenbeek – Designer
Site manager: Ruben Cattrysse – Crux architecten
Project Date: July 2010
Photographs: Jeroen Musch

Knokke-Heist is a mythical “cité balnéaire” in Belgium. The apartment lies on the 2nd floor with a view over the Rubensplein.

Despite its generous size, the typology of the flat is very long and narrow which makes the current layout very inefficient with regard to corridors and effective living spaces. A clear reorganization of the internal partitions and bathroom layouts enables us to develop a new specific concept not only for the space and the materials, but also for the display of the client art collection, a mini “personal museum” A frame to look out at the ocean and towards the beach in the daytime, the apartment becomes a glowing space to look into at night time.

Increasing the perception of generous space was the prime goal pursued in order to provide a new living experience within. The idea was to blur the limits of the rooms to maximize the impression, the continuity and the fluidity of space.

This was achieved by a careful planning of niches integrated into the walls creating pockets on both sides, extending the volume from one side to the other.

These miniature rooms are not touching the ground. They are perceived as floating elements, with the floor opening out below them. The fact that the edges of the ground are not visible increases the virtual gain of space.

Immateriality and materiality are used in a dynamic way to provide a clear context of the outdoor / indoor feel, transparencies and reflections:

-Concrete for walls, ceilings, and niches

-Highly reflective glass for bathrooms and cross visual panels.

-Natural wooden floor salvaged from the original Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam creating a continuous surface that morphs into furniture, inducing this feeling of unity and space. The provenance of the floor constitutes a reference to the art world important for the client’s “personal museum”.

-Collaboration with the artist Maxime Ansiau has led to the design of specific tiles for the bathrooms, with manipulated illustrations of original Dutch landscapes.

-Layered curtains by Designer Erick Klarenbeck are overlaying boats and dune landscapes

They create an indoor landscape that expresses a close relationship between the client and his home country, the Netherlands.