This 1970s brutalist house in Belgium has a new life as a designer’s home and studio

Based in their 1970s brutalist house, designer Bram Kerkhofs and network architect Lore Baeyens live together in Leuven, outside Brussels. The creative duo acquired Villa Stuyven, their 20th-century concrete home in the residential neighbourhood of Holsbeek, and have transformed it into a combination of family house, artistic residency and studio. 

A reimagined 1970s brutalist house

Designed by local architects Vanderbiest & Reynaert in 1970 for the artist and philosopher Jef Stuyven, the structure has been thoroughly overhauled to accommodate Kerkhofs’s studio, together with a new guest house component for artistic residencies, held in collaboration with Leuven’s Cas-co art space organisation.

Villa Stuyven is a classic slice of Belgian brutalist architecture, created during a fertile period of residential design that has withstood the test of time and continues to be much sought after. The concrete house is embedded in the forest, with board-marked internal and external walls paired with dark window frames, white masonry internal walls and dark ceramic tiles. The large windows frame beautiful views of a garden that blends seamlessly with the woodland. 

At entrance level, the house is arranged over two-storeys; the site slopes up to a single storey at the rear, giving it a very different visual character. The renovation has stayed true to the original materials palette, with the addition of oak flooring to complete the concrete ceilings found throughout.

Kerkhofs trained as a goldsmith, and his furniture and accessories combine metalworking with playful architectural forms, from the Coil cabinetry to ‘Les Gaufres’, a collection of modular candleholders inspired by Belgian waffles.

The house now provides a solid, uncompromising backdrop for both Kerkhofs’ own work and the couple’s accumulation of vintage furniture pieces. 

The designer’s workspace occupies Stuyven’s old art studio, and the original house’s six-bedroom layout provides ample space for the visiting creatives.

Bram-Kerkhofs.be