The house is located on the edge of an area characterized by traditional architecture. At the same time, it looks towards Luxemburg’s city centre and its modern buildings.
Starting from this consideration, we decided to reshape the roof interpreting the language of the immediate surroundings to generate a new appearance, using the same materials in a different form.
Analyzing your demands about the program, we opted to replace the structure made of bearing walls with an inner steel skeleton, preserving the external walls and most of the main façade.
In the basement, a new passage connects the two vaulted halls. Moreover, it organizes the space into four distinct environments without even using any vertical partition, except for the toilette.
A large part of the ground floor is transformed into a garage while the rest of it accommodates one of the two apartments to be rented and, clearly, the entrance.
The second rent apartment is located right above the other, on the first floor. At the same level, there is the night area of the house: a bedroom with direct access to a private bathroom and a spacious wardrobe, a second bedroom, and a larger bathroom.
From the second floor, a staircase reaches the attic, a space free from columns thanks to the reticular beams supporting the new roof. Despite it is an open space, every function has its specifications: the living “room” as an example, is cozy and intimate, while the kitchen is bright and directly connected both with the lunch area and the terrace.
Between the terrace and the rest of the floor, there is a system of glass panels that can be re-arranged to obtain a seamless continuity between internal and external, basically allowing to extend the lunch area, or if one likes to see it in another way, the terrace. A renewed light can penetrate from the larger dormers, that expand the space while becoming able to host a function or, better still, moments like reading a book, sitting on the low windowsill, or sipping a cup of tea looking at the view.
These dormers have been redesigned and establish brand-new relation not only with the internal space but also with the roof itself and its oblique lines. The typical mansard assumes new meanings: the lower part of the pitch becomes the parapet while the higher one is the proper home roofing. Nonetheless, the latter can be seen also as a simple covering, a shelter, for the terrace, especially when this is “extended”.