Erich-Mendelsohn-Preis 2023 für Backstein-Architektur

The house is positioned between coastal dunes, a pine forest and the open polder landscape. The extension embraces the existing house and opens it up towards the garden, reinvigorating the feeling of living in the forest. The first floor with two bathrooms, a playroom and a guest room is completely dedicated to the children for them to turn it into their own world. The wings with the living room and the master bedroom are positioned on the ground floor and extend into the garden. In the curved veranda that connects these wings a tree has been planted that pokes through the veranda roof, shaping the transition between inside and outside.

The sides of the veranda floor and cantilevering roof have been truncated by a virtual sphere of which the middle point sits at the centre of the garden, embedding the villa both literally and conceptually in the landscape. The transparent facade is made of sustainable preserved Fraké wood and its generous sliding doors continue the spatial enfilade of the interior into the design of the garden, anchoring the brick building in the undulating landscape of

maritime pines.

Both the existing villa and the extension are materialised in brick, yet they contrast in brick size, colour and treatment, showing the layers of time in the project. The renovated white villa has been treated with white and anthracite coloured mineral paint. The extension, with reference to the architecture of Sigurd Lewerentz, is materialised in dark brown bricks, giving it, together with the wide joints, a robust appearance that over time will be enriched by the traces of nature.