“There are no rules to what we do,” says Axel Vervoordt. “Everything is chosen by feeling. In this house, we wanted it to feel comfortable, serene, and silent, with a sense of oneness with the surrounding nature. This is the essence of what we tried to achieve.” The remarkable effects of this approach are on full display in a recently completed project, an inviting and elegant country house nestled in the quiet, leafy suburbs 20 minutes outside of Antwerp, Belgium.
A few distinctive storylines define the modest former gardener’s cottage’s destiny. First, for the polymathic Belgian designer, the project was personal. The owners are relatives, the eldest son and daughter-in-law of Vervoordt’s only sister. (Full transparency: I am also a member of the family, married to Vervoordt’s son Boris.) Second, for design aficionados and nature lovers alike, the home has a unique location. The plot of land sits at the edge of the park of the Castle of ’s-Gravenwezel—the iconic home the AD100 Hall of Famer has shared with his wife, May, since 1984.
“I was happy that one of my nephews came to live near us,” says Vervoordt. “The proximity of family is a timeless aspect of life in many world cultures. It promotes the sense of an exchange of energy by living close to each other.” The land was alluring to the couple as well. “We wanted to build this house because of its unique location next to May and Axel in the relaxing environment near their castle,” says the nephew.
Although the land was beautiful—a narrow, flowing stream creates a natural dividing line between a formal lawn and the wild woods in the back—there was an existing 19th-century cottage in need of major renovation. In Vervoordt’s words, it was a ruin. The structure’s original footprint was small, but it had a lot of charm.
The designer, along with the family, enlisted architect Tatsuro Miki to bring their ideas into reality. The founder of his eponymous firm, Tatsuro Miki Architects, he is a Japanese talent who has been based in Brussels for more than two decades. Miki and Vervoordt are frequent collaborators, and together they’ve completed several projects, including the acclaimed TriBeCa Penthouse at the Greenwich Hotel. They coauthored the book Wabi Inspirations (Flammarion, 2011), which has become an essential reference in wabi-sabi philosophy in design and architecture.
“In a lot of our work,” says Miki, “we look for a dialogue between East and West. In this project, we wanted to combine the formality of this old home with a new barnlike structure that incorporated wabi elements.” In conversation, Vervoordt and Miki often continue each other’s sentences, to enhance and overlap the meaning of what they are trying to convey. “Yes,” says Vervoordt, “the old part of the house is formal, and the new addition is more meditative—like yin-yang. Each room has a unique atmosphere. When you bring it all together, it’s like one world.”
What a peaceful world it is. The sense of harmony arises from the balance between the two structures—the 19th-century structure is all about color and layers, and the new barn is connected to nature with the duo’s iconic minimal magic. A long, almost empty corridor connects the two parts. Strategically placed windows have a deeper meaning. They are set below eye level, too low to see directly outside when walking down the hallway. “The windows offer a view to the ground,” Vervoordt says. “Like in a monastery, the long walkway is a preparation for the mind.” Miki uses the Japanese term roji to describe the feeling—a pathway that serves as a transitional space on the way to a teahouse. “It’s about openness and preparing the mind to enter into another world.” A window in the primary bedroom is also positioned low, at the height of the bed, to offer a restrained view for calmness and quiet.
The team typically embeds every decision with a philosophical explanation. According to Miki and Vervoordt, no synthetic materials were used in the building process. They employed hemp as a construction material for the new walls because of its breathable qualities and eco-friendly insulation. Acoustically, it’s also ideal. The soft, sandy color of the walls—many of which are not painted—arises from the use of natural clay. The warm, cozy kitchen utilizes lime plaster and a natural, casein paint and features a heated terra-cotta floor. “The combination of the pale green and blue is a very 19th-century notion,” says Vervoordt. “It’s a reflection of nature’s blue sky and green environment. It works very well in this surrounding.”
The art in the home also reflects the personal, human element of this story. A canvas in the kitchen is an image the future designer crafted of his nephew in 1964 when they were 17 and 4 years old, respectively. Vervoordt had been babysitting the boy and he refused to eat. “I was painting during those years,” he says, “and I returned home after that evening and painted his portrait.” The touching story and sweet memento capture the heart of what is always on the mind of a designer: problem-solving. “I just wanted my nephew to eat!” he recalls, with his wide grin and big, infectious laugh.
Other artworks are by Belgian Jef Verheyen, a master of light and color, who was a personal friend of everyone in the family, as well as Japanese artists Sadaharu Horio and Ryuji Tanaka. (Horio and Tanaka were members of the Gutai Art Association, an avant-garde group renowned for their originality and freedom of material expression.) The art has a symbolic connection to what Vervoordt and Miki do in all their work. “It explains a lot about our approach,” says Miki. “We care about materials. We are always seeking their physical truth. Everything is made with purpose, and yet, we don’t start with preplanned ideas. We add elements and then we search for the solution to bring them together…we like to make things that last.”
This history is underlined by the recuperated wooden beams used in the barn’s sitting room. More than 100 years old, they were salvaged from Dutch barns. They assist in structural support but importantly tell the wabi story of time, rustic imperfection, and nature as the greatest artist. Outside, the wooden columns are made with larch wood, for its softness. “This is a very happy house,” says Vervoordt. “It radiates positivity and [the clients] were so creative and nice to work with. They understood the ecological and technical things that we wanted to achieve and appreciated everything.”
The couple agrees. “Axel and Tatsuro have a very good sense of the people they are building for,” says the wife. Her husband concurs: “Every day, when we arrive at home, we experience a great zen feeling, relaxing mindset, and a perfect spiritual balance,” he says. A man of many talents—curator, designer, dealer, collector, and in this case, uncle—Vervoordt’s nearly 60-year career is perhaps best defined by his mastery of atmosphere; one knows the company’s interiors by the feelings they evoke when one enters their environments. This picturesque abode continues this very personal story in a peaceful, poetic, and magical way.
This Belgian country house, designed by Axel Vervoordt, covers AD’s July/August issue. Never miss a story when you subscribe to AD.
