Tour & Taxis housing (UV2, UV4), Brussels,
Belgium, 2016-2025

'Karson' and 'Pacific' are designed as garden villas, accessed from the urban courtyards. Both buildings contain 19 apartments, arranged four per floor, each and including a balcony loggia, a kitchen and salon that interconnect to form a spatial ensemble.

Chamfered corners give the two buildings a soft form: while the three sides facing the garden have facetted corners, the facade to the courtyard is flat and defined by the elliptical arched entrance porch and open loggias above. The facades are clad with glazed ceramic tiles with vertically staggered joints: shaped tiles create texture at the base of the building and a crown at the top, and rendered columns and architraves give a quietly ornamental character to these two small jewel-like villas at the heart of the masterplan.