DEBY

where                Schaerbeek / Schaarbeek

who                     private client

when                  2024

status                 in construction

size                       75 m2

cost                      1.850 €/m2 excl. VAT

This project explores the evolution of technical spaces in domestic architecture, and the potential they hold to reshape the organisation of contemporary living.

In the existing floor plan, these so-called “servant spaces”—kitchen, WC, laundry, storage—were relegated to the back of the home, hidden from view and reserved for servants. The reception spaces, facing the street, projected the social standing of the household to the onlookers. Between them and the garden stretched the technical layer, separating utility from display, the hidden from the seen.

Today, the status of these spaces has profoundly changed. The kitchen, once tucked away, becomes the heart of the home—a place that connects the living room, dining area, and garden, and plays a central role in the daily lives of the inhabitants.

Still functional, these technical zones have become architectural tools: they organize circulation, filter views, and create subtle transitions—between public and private, day and night, interior and exterior. This project seeks to question what serves and what is served—moving beyond hierarchy toward a spatial language shaped by articulation, use, and perception.