LSTW apartments

This neighbourhood presents itself as a closed area of narrow, uniform streets of working-class housing. Such neighbourhoods emerged behind the ribbon development along the various brick roads and became isolated from Mechelen’s city centre with the transformation of the ramparts into a traffic ring. Neglect of public spaces and poor maintenance of both public and private properties have contributed greatly to the overall degradation of the neighbourhood.

The city council commissioned a structure plan in late 1995, which identified areas that were eligible for a special grant. Within this framework and in the sphere of the announced extension of the city hall, dmvA carried out an analysis of this gateway to the city on behalf of the public housing company ‘Duffelse volkswoningen’. The basic premise of the masterplan was to build towards the railway and rehabilitate certain spots -especially corner plots- as a showcase for the rest of the neighbourhood. Within this context, imaging, orientation and a break from the classic housing pattern were the key concepts.

Mindful of the site and its history, the building is designed on the wedge-shaped plot with south-facing street side as a stacking of different ‘goods’ or seven different housing types.  The free weaving of the units creates voids or covered communal outdoor spaces in the building that connect the public space to the inner area and provide outdoor space (and social control) for the apartments. By grouping living around indoor outdoor spaces, social interaction is promoted and communication encouraged without providing crowded external terraces. The voids complete the three-dimensional object so that it can simultaneously integrate into and contrast with its surroundings.

The sharpness of the conceptual pivot and the sharp angles of the hard-to-arrange plot are felt in the carved design of the dormer window, for example. It is precisely these details of mitred bricks and suspended brickwork that add value to the materiality of the design.

Although the use of colour harks back to the dark brickwork of the surrounding 19th-century architecture (though with lightly glazed finishes and thin-bed mortar), the verticality of the narrow surrounding plots is not included in the project. This stems from the principle of making each of the seven social housing units in the building readable through a single window opening and to provide the flats with qualitative sightlines. The materiality of the black window frames is continued in the stair sculpture, which is located at the rear façade due to lack of space.

The regulations of the Public Housing Corporation (standard kitchens, no concealed window profiles, measured surface areas) serve the social purposes of the institution, which wants to be a model for solid and sustainable building. This reduced the project’s detailing, but created the challenge of letting architecture speak for itself.