Hotel des Monnaies

ARCHITECT: CO-DE
PROJECT NAME: Hotel des Monnaies
TYPE: Apartment
LOCATION: Brussels, Belgium
SIZE: 40 m2
YEAR: 2022
PROCEDURE: Commission
STATUS: Completed
BUDGET: 20.000 € excl VAT
CLIENT: Private
Small projects can be just as challenging as larger ones. Sometimes even more so when the ambition to trans- form places is combined with very modest budgets. The challenge then becomes to achieve a maximum effect with a minimal set of gestures.
In this objective, the starting point is to look for the intrinsic qualities of the spaces. Recognizing the qualities of what already exists allows for the reduction of the design gestures and to intervene only where the potential lies. The project is a reaction to these initial conditions by means of the instruments of architecture: spatiality, materiality and composition.
The project is situated in a lively neighbourhood in Brussels, along a rather busy street. The apartment is on the first floor of a small modernist building from the 60s. The facade, pure and elegant, offers massive windows which bring light to the small, double-sided units.
The original plans revealed the structural logic of the concrete building, hidden away behind a covering of plaster layers.
A system of columns and beams crosses the width of the apartment four times, which in fact defines three zones. The zone on the street side of the living room, the central zone of the services, and finally the zone of the room facing the inner court side. Making the concrete structure visible clarified these three spaces.
Two objects are inserted into this system: the first is
a wall serving as a backdrop of storage for the kitchen while integrating appliances, and the second is a kitchen cabinet that, by its position, defines better the kitchen area. A third object, the marble shelf, was already there, embedded in the recess of the wall. These elements are treated in the most abstract way possible, as simple forms and recognizable as such by their somewhat precious and unusual materials.
The aluminium “wall” also integrates a secret passage to the rear part of the apartment. The “wall” clearly separates the living spaces from the more intimate spaces of the bedroom and the bathroom. When all the doors are closed, a single aluminium surface is created, and it is easy to believe that the apartment stops at the front part.
The choice of materials is determined by the desire to give a strong identity to the elements but also to make them interact with each other. The rough and raw side of the concrete and wood creates a dialog with the smoother and more evanescent aluminium doors and polyurethane floor.