BLAF architecten

Zero Energy House Lokeren

Zero Energy House Lokeren
© Stijn Bollaert

ZERO ENERGY HOUSE LOKEREN

BLAF Architecten

CATEGORY
House

LOCATION
Lokeren, Belgium

AREA
297

YEAR
2011

PHOTOGRAPHS
Stijn Bollaert

Zero Energy House Lokeren
© Stijn Bollaert
Zero Energy House Lokeren
© Stijn Bollaert

BLAF focuses on the generating capacity of architecture on a spatial, social and ecological level. Urbanism and preoccupation with private property have led to land being consumed to the point that Belgium is now one of the most dense and dispersed areas in Europe.

Zero Energy House Lokeren
© Stijn Bollaert
Zero Energy House Lokeren
© Stijn Bollaert

BLAF have since long contributed to the general awareness of this “genetic” condition by experimenting with its most basic component: the single family house.

This house is built in a typical Flemish sprawl-area, on the edge of an allotment, where the suburbs literally face the countryside. The allotment creates a condition that is both generic and specific, context and non-text.

Zero Energy House Lokeren
© Stijn Bollaert
Zero Energy House Lokeren
© Stijn Bollaert
Zero Energy House Lokeren
© Stijn Bollaert

The house deals with this condition in an apparently indifferent way, whilst in fact it is questioning the allotment: it is reformulating the concept of the front, side and back facade by addressing the surroundings in equivalent ways, and it is consciously leaving any kind of fencing behind.

Passive houses have unusually thick outside walls. Organizing staircases, furniture, storage, technical rooms etc. against these walls articulates their thickness even more.

The house becomes a monolith, with a thick functional shell and an intimate, encapsulated center.

Zero Energy House Lokeren
© Stijn Bollaert
Zero Energy House Lokeren
© Stijn Bollaert

Every window creates a niche, an abscissa, orchestrating the relations between the heart of the house and the exterior.

From a “passive house” point of view, the shell perforations are balanced between the maximization of solar heat gains and the reduction of heat losses.

Zero Energy House Lokeren
© Stijn Bollaert


Zero Energy House Lokeren
Section
Zero Energy House Lokeren
Site Plan


Zero Energy House Lokeren
Elevation
Zero Energy House Lokeren
Elevation
Zero Energy House Lokeren
Elevation
Zero Energy House Lokeren
Elevation


Zero Energy House Lokeren
Underground Floor Plan
Zero Energy House Lokeren
Ground Floor Plan
Zero Energy House Lokeren
First Floor Plan

BLAF architecten
T +32 9 3496777 F +32 9 3496777
BLAF architecten
Poststraat 100, B-9160 Lokeren, Belgium