Recto-verso House
Brussels, 1991-1996

RV is a house for an art critic.
A row house as you can see and we called it this way because - quite abstract - the front and the rear façade are identical (not symmetrical) replicas of each other.
Inside, the organizing elements are floor to ceiling high cupboards or wardrobes. This with the exception of one structural wall that sets apart the staircase. The outer walls are thus  kept free for the hanging of pieces of art.
The house is 15 meters deep, 6 meters wide. Being a row house, we made ceilings over an average 3.15m high which made the rooms very spacious, with cupboards in every hallway (to store a lot of things).
The house [...]consists of 3 levels plus one underground garage, plus one roof terrace on top.
Two levels contain the living and sleeping rooms. An extra studio level contains a library and guesthouse.
Since the garden and the ground floor sit one third of a level (1.15m) below street and entrance level : the staircase gets a central place (quite literally).
We saw a possibility to introduce a double high entrance hall with the stairs branching off to a double high library on top.
There are all kind of subtleties that arise from the RV concept : play with levels evoke interior window frames; a half sunk  in terrace room on top of the staircase brings extra sunlight in, quite central, in the rowhouse.