FELT is renovating a midcentury bungalow in Ghent for a single family.

When asked to design a new townhouse as a 'starters home' by AG Vespa, we decided to literally think of the house as a starting point: A simple house, as a first step to fulfil the principal demand in the most economic and rigid way. But together with the main house, anticipating on growth and rising budgets, we also designed a series of complementary add-ons.
Rather than giving way to a series of belgian-style 'ad hoc' extensions, we created a set of 'toppings': Seemingly independent architectural objects providing different spatial qualities and accessory functionality. Dispensable yet essential, just like the chocolate sprinkles on your frozen yoghurt.




Location: BE, Antwerp
Client: AG Vespa
Surface: 110 sqm
Status: Executed

Team: Jasper Stevens, Karel Verstraeten, Samuele Xompero, Lucas Van Remoortel
Consultants: Robuust
Images: FELT

FELT designed a small extension for a single family house in Eke. The wedge-shaped extension houses a library with home office space. The load bearing bookshelves carry the roof of this all-wooden construction. The space opens up towards the back garden and adjacent meadows.











Location: BE, Eke
Client: Private
Surface: 60 sqm
Status: Execution

Team: Jasper Stevens, Karel Verstraeten, Judith De Pau, Lucas Van Remoortel
Images: FELT & Woema

FELT extends a detached single-family house by adding a hat-shaped second story. The first floor with a rational floor plan accommodates three bedrooms and a bathroom. A double-height dining space with barrel vaulted ceiling playfully links the two floors.











Location: BE, Ghent
Client: Private
Surface: 165 sqm
Status: Execution

Team: Jasper Stevens, Karel Verstraeten, Elisabeth Van Kerckhove
Consultants: Vesting
Images: FELT

In the center of a densely built city area, a small alley leads to an irregularly shaped building plot. On this site FELT designed a single-family home with studio space. Breaking up the functions into different volumes creates a spatially generous house embracing a lush city garden.











Location: BE, Ghent
Client: Private
Surface: 345 sqm
Status: Building permit

Team: Jasper Stevens, Karel Verstraeten, Marie Lafosse, Michiel Hutsebaut
Consultants: Mouton, Vesting
Images: FELT

A series of ill-considered construction works and decades of neglect and squatting left these three majestic houses in a terrible condition. Apart from the facades all was lost, so we faced no other option than to start anew. Behind the renovated facades three identical new and sustainable townhouses will be constructed.
The section shows how a central staircase creates a split level situation, able to join the high ceilings in the front with compact bedrooms at the back. The living areas are organised on the top floors where they can connect with the terrace. The verticality of the section is complemented by a chimney-like brick shaft that pierces through the wooden construction and joins all technical installations in one element.




Location: BE, Antwerp
Client: AG Vespa
Surface: 380 sqm
Status: Tender

Team: Jasper Stevens, Karel Verstraeten, Adrian Verhoijsen, Judith De Pau, Marie Lafosse, Michiel Hutsebaut
Consultants: UTIL, ROBUUST, EA+
Images: FELT

For this idiosyncratic renovation, the original building was wrapped in a new envelope, delineating a new volume. The front is designed as an iteration of the adjacent classical rhythm in white stucco. In contrast, suiting its role as a corner piece for the street, the lateral facade is clad in wood and characterized by a series of seemingly randomly arranged windows
Next to the studios in the existing volume, the extension is conceived as an independent town house containing ‘bel-étage’ living spaces flanked by a large terrace and a ground floor that opens up to a harmoniously designed stone garden. The top floor is conceived as a kind of “crow's nest”, looking over the nearby river and the city.











Location: BE, Ghent
Client: private
Surface: 550 sqm
Status: built

Team: Jasper Stevens (FELT) with 360 architecten
Consultants: LIME, Robuust
Images: Filip Dujardin (exterior), FELT

The brief for this social housing project called for 7 single 3-bedroom houses and 3 apartments. The plot is a long stretched strip in a street consisting of consecutive row houses with small north-oriented private backyards. Rather then persevering this existing typology we opted to turn things around. By creating an alternating rhythm of laterally organized houses and dual gardens we break up the continuous street facade. Bringing light into the street and giving the houses and gardens a more beneficial East-West orientation. This feature was reinforced furthermore by the gently rounded brick corners, creating the quaint figuration that is repeated in the corner building containing the apartments.











Location: BE, Ghent
Client: Woningent
Surface: 1200 sqm
Status: Competition

Team: Jasper Stevens, Karel Verstraeten
Consultants: Tech 3, LIME
Images: FELT

The design frees the main volume of the house from a series of annexes that had left it deprived from sunlight. In stead we propose a seemingly independent addition at the back of the building zone. It is conceived as a pavilion-like volume containing the new living room and the master bedroom on top, both looking out over the garden. A fully glazed double height corridor flanked by a patio, links up old and new. It houses the kitchen and is cut trough by a walkway connecting the master bedroom on the first floor with the rest of the house.











Location: BE, Gentbrugge
Client: Private
Surface: 200 sqm
Phase: Built

Team: Jasper Stevens, Karel Verstraeten, Adrian Verhoijsen, Bram Denkens
Consultants: I'm With Alice, EA+
Images: FELT

This compact single-family home houses a studio on the first floor and a double physiotherapist practice in the base. Towards the streetside two curved half-brick walls embrace two small gardens, preventing gawking from the outside and providing a green extension to the practice spaces as well.











Location: BE, Lubbeek
Client: private
Surface: 390 sqm
Status: built

Team: Karel Verstraeten
Consultants: I'm With Alice, EA+
Photos: FELT