Photos by Adam Letch
In Flanders fields, the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row…reads the famous wartime poem by John McCrae. But Flanders holds so much more than memories of that great war – as the prosperous northern region of Belgium, known for its impressive heritage and the progressive craftsmanship of its master painters and their descendants. A feature of the area is the architecture, where South African-founded firm SAOTA excelled with its design of a distinctive contemporary architectural dwelling on a large wooded lot.
This stunning project allowed SAOTA to design a distinctive contemporary architectural object in the landscape that would simultaneously serve as a warm, outward-looking living environment and engage meaningfully with its surroundings. With a total site area of 17 393 m2, SAOTA’s design team proposed a development with a project area of 2000 m2
Philip Olmesdahl, Principal at SAOTA says: “Given the expansive site and its rich landscape, our design approach was about integrating the building as an object within its environment. Early in the process, we decided on the main house and a separate pavilion housing the pool and gym. The relationship between these buildings and the surrounding space defines the unique character of the site arrangement.”
Design response, concept and implementation
The standout components of the master plan include a main house above a basement parking garage and a separate pool pavilion with a home office. The house and pavilion are linked via landscaped courtyards, a structured system of koi ponds and a swimming pool.
The exterior design comprises solid cubes and interconnecting glazed voids, unified with a slender canopy that wraps around three sides to form outdoor terraces. Clustered vertical columns double as sculptural screens. The faćade design is an expression of the interior layout. The client’s preference for traditional, defined rooms rather than an open-plan arrangement led to cellular interior spaces that open outwards onto the terraces and inwards towards a double-volume central atrium with skylights.
The house responds to the local climate by fostering an indoor-outdoor lifestyle in summer and an introverted, cosy environment centring on the atrium in winter. The cellular character of the rooms fragments or erodes as they open to the terraces and atrium, which makes for fluid transitions and invites glimpses of the garden deep into the interiors.
The exterior faćades feature a restrained palette of materials – slabs of Giallo D’Istria marble cladding on the walls, sandstone floors, and panelled Alucabond aluminium sheets along the fireplace broken up by large glass panels. The contrast between the precision of the architectural detailing and the organic textures of the materials amplifies their inherent beauty.
The simplicity and formal clarity of this home’s design, both as an architectural object and a tranquil living environment, aims to facilitate an authentic, connected relationship with its natural setting.
SAOTA’s scope ended at the IDD stage. After that, APART Architects of Belgium managed the entire process, from tenders and approvals to site works. Beginning with the design response phase in April 2018, SAOTA’s team in South Africa received progress photos “every other month” ending in March 2023.
Project credits
Project Name: Flanders House
Lead Designers: SAOTA
SAOTA Project Team : Philip Olmesdahl, Joe Schutzer-Weissmann, Nasreen
Larney, Bobby Labrou & Valerie Lehabe
Architect of Record: Apart Architects
Project Manager: Hadewijch Geuskens
Interior Designer: Pieter Laureys
Furnished by : TKI Interiors
Contractor: Van Mourik Bouw
Electrical Engineer: High End Electro
Landscaping: Wirtz International
Lighting Design: Cone Lighting
Photographer: Adam Letch