Italiëlei social housing Antwerp

On a fallow plot at the northern end of the Leien, the central avenues that traverse Antwerp, an apartment building with 8 social housing units was developed on the Italiëlei. The new volume forges connections with the existing architectural profiles on the street and, with 6 building layers up to the building line, and 2 set back stories, restores balance to the surroundings.

The ground floor is elevated as a way of establishing distance between the public character of the street and the private space of the house, while the vertical circulation core is placed in the heart of the building block. This gives access to 8 residential units, each with 3 bedrooms. In the central zone, the sanitary functions are stacked one above the other, always in a compact manner. Each living unit has a terrace at the open front, which allows good levels of natural light into the interior, despite the relatively deep nature of the plot.