Text by Aslı Çiçek. In Grez-Doiceau Philippe Vander Maren and Richard Venlet designed a house with a handful of elements that pay much attention to the elements of architecture and yet succeed in avoiding its overstatement. Precise decisions on architectural elements, applied to a pragmatic spatial organization, resulting in an impressive complexity.
© Jeroen VerrechtVander Maren and Venlet felt very early in the process that the search for contrast was not necessary here. They conceived a project with a handful of materials and precise decisions and applied it to a pragmatic spatial organization. Yet their shared precision in the combination of architectural elements makes the simple plan of the house reach an impressive complexity in the third dimension.
domestic living could be seen as a play and a house as its scenography
House M would be the impeccable demonstration of how to stage that play
In a good scenography each element on the stage has a function
the light is directed at the right moments to the relevant spots
everything visual relates to the context of the story
and things flow into each other and every moment of the narrative is supported with spatial elements
The actors use the stage in an evident way
the scenography serves the play and yet it has its own dignity
serene stage for domestic life surrounded by nature and inviting its actors to inhabit
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BERLIN - Eleven people including two firefighters were killed on Thursday as violent gales battered northern Europe, snapping air and train links.
Germany halted all long-distance rail traffic for at least a day, while numerous domestic flights were scrapped as hurricane-force winds lashed the country.
The storm claimed eight lives in Germany, including two firefighters deployed in emergency operations and two truck drivers whose vehicles were blown over.
Another driver died when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a truck.
A 59-year-old camper was killed instantly when a tree fell on him in North Rhine-Westphalia state, police said, as wind speeds reached a high of 203 kilometers per hour at Brocken - the highest peak of northern Germany.
The storm, named Friederike, also ripped the roof off a school in the eastern state of Thuringia while children were still in the building. Authorities said no one was hurt.
It is the worst storm to strike Germany since 2007. Insurers estimated on Friday that ferocious gales caused$614 million in damages.
In the Netherlands, which bore the brunt of the storms earlier on Thursday, two people were crushed by falling trees as winds barreled off the North Sea to hit the low-lying country with full force.
As the National Weather Service raised its warning to the highest level, red, a 62-year-old man was killed in Olst by a falling branch when he got out of his truck to remove debris blocking the road.
A second Dutchman, also 62, was killed in eastern Enschede when a tree toppled onto his car.
In neighboring Belgium, a woman reportedly died when her car was crushed by a tree as she was traveling through a wood in the Grez-Doiceau area, about 35 kilometers south of Brussels.
Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, one of the continent's busiest travel hubs, was forced to briefly cancel all flights as winds gusted up to 140 km/h in some areas.
Flights later resumed but all passengers were being advised to check their flight status, the airport said in a tweet, adding"up until now, 320 flights have been canceled".
The airport also had to close the entrances to two of its three departure halls when some roof tiles were whipped off the terminal building.
The traffic chaos also plagued the roads, with the Dutch national traffic office reporting 66 trucks had been blown over by the high winds causing huge traffic jams on the motorways, the highest recorded number since 1990.
The Dutch NS national train service warned of further disruption on Friday.
The hashtag #StormPoolen(or storm carpool) began trending with people searching for rides between cities, and some drivers offering spare seats in their cars.
"My boyfriend is trying to get from Leiden Central to Delft. He's very nice and there's a bottle of wine in it for whoever can return him unharmed. #StormPoolen," wrote one Twitter user.
A family home in the southern suburbs of Brussels, courtesy of Nicolas Schuybroek Architects, combines a discreet presence with functionality and minimalism
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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*
She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London
she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006
visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas
Ellie has also taken part in judging panels
such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson
Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).