Godecharles

2005 - 2013

Construction of 66 apartments and ground floor retail rues Godecharle and Idalie in Ixelles.
Streetview

Site
Rue Godecharles and Rue d'Idalie 1050 Brussels
Client
Skyline Europe
Services engineer
Technics sprl
Contractor
Louis de Waele - Jacques Delens
Surfaces
7 989 m² above ground level and 3 031 m² below ground level
Budget
11 200 000 € htva

Complete description

Godecharle wraps up the last phase of the urban rehabilitation project known as the Espace Léopold, started in 1987 by the SEL (Société Espace Leopold). It lies at the intersection of the quiet, smaller-scaled Rue Godecharle, and the busy Rue d'Idalie with its more imposing boulevard scale.

The interplay of folds and inclined pleats (de)compose and articulate built masses along both streets. Starting discreetly on the Rue Godecharle, stepping back there in order to offer a bit of greenery, peaking at the intersection with the Rue d'Idalie … once the corner taken the white serpentine finishes level with the highest party wall at the other end of the plot. With retenue, the building morphs, eaves somehow become ridges, and then somehow back to eaves, adjoining the volumes softly one to another.

Knitting the project into its quartier is watchful and discerning: existing party walls disappear behind carefully calibered forms, gardens front and back offer to passers-by and occupants well-deserved breathers, entrances are all street-side on the more intimate Rue Godecharle, and then through a wide see-through passageway on the more formal Rue d'Idalie. Inside, layouts are varied : duplexes at lower levels but also generous rooftop and corner flats with conservatories, large and small units all with wide views of the (cleaned up) planted inner courts.

The street-side play of balconies and conservatories transpire these varying inside layouts, qualifying transition between inside and out. Like in Crespel, solid swaths of white façade interplay with elongated openings on a vertical grid, the checkerboard of shadows off horizontal fire-guards (topping certain windows) adding delicate highlights.

(c) photos Alex Polaic Photography & architectesassoc+


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