Villa Roces in Belgium by Govaert & Vanhoutte.

Every once in a while I write and format a post, and just before I hit “publish”, something would come up and the poor post would get bumped back into my drafts folder. More often then not, these posts never get to see the light of day again. They become old news in my head, as though I’d already shared them with you and moved on. Weird, isn’t it? Anyway, this is actually one of those posts. It’s been sitting pretty in my drafts folder for good 6 months, slowly gathering dust. But Husband saw it the other day and told me to get over it and stop being silly (he’s really good at that) and that I should share it with you people. So here we are. If this house is a bit of “old news” – you can blame Him. If you love it – well, then… I’ll happily take credit for it, hahaha!

Now that these useless facts are out of the way, how about I tell you a little bit about the house? It is called ‘Villa Roces’, and it is located on a large site (70m long and 30m wide) in the forest surroundings Bruges in Belgium. Designed by the Flemish studio Govaert & Vanhoutte architectuurburo, it features a 50m long, 4.20m high timber wall which flanks the 6m wide glass box. The entire house is built around and along this wall which acts as a background for the transparent volume at the front.

Apart from the epic wall, what appeals to me the most about this place are the generous sizes of certain elements in key areas – that enormous glass pivot door which connects the kitchen and living to the outside, large box window along the back wall, elegant floating platforms that create the internal stair, sunken swimming pool which runs along the side of the house and can be seen from living room, bedroom and bathroom… I find these elements to be a beautiful study in lofty proportions, luxury of space and simplicity in details – all of which I am a bit of fan, you know.