Design process with Vincent & Elke

There are plenty of holiday homes and parks, full of ‘default’ holiday homes. That’s not what Vincent and Elke had in mind; They wanted something different. With their holiday home, they wanted to create a ‘lower scale concept’, with a more luxurious level and focus on the higher segment. They found inspiration for their house abroad, during their vacations. In sum, they wanted to convey that luxurious feeling that they got in holiday homes.

But the holiday home in Halle is not just for rental. They also want to be able to enjoy themselves here with their three children. There had to be at least 5 sleeping places, accommodating 3 children and 2 adults.

At the beginning of 2019, they purchased the piece of land. This marked the beginning of the design process. However, there was one big challenge: According to the zoning plans of the government, the house was allowed to be 70 m2 maximum. This raised the challenge of making a very efficient layout, to still realise those 5 sleeping places as well as giving a luxurious feeling.

Why did they choose to work with ExMaterials? Vincent and Els had read about a young architect who had designed a luxury villa. You can read more about Villa Eekhof here. They also wanted to realise the luxury of untouched nature as well as a comfortable and energy-efficient home.

In the design process, the desire to involve nature in the home while still obtaining privacy from the street side was taken into account. This has been achieved by giving the house two faces. On the street side, the front facade offers a closed character with narrow and high windows. On the back/nature side, the L-shaped volume opens up around the terrace. This lets the indoor space and outdoor space flow into each other and turns the terrace into an extension of the living room when the sliding doors are open.

Materials have been chosen carefully to convey that luxurious feeling. Dark colours have been used at the outside of the building, like a sheltered silhouette in the forest. Contrary to the outside, the interior expresses light colours from the wooden roof-beams in sight, providing a spacious feeling due to the enormous amount of natural light. In addition, the holiday home is designed with much eye for detail. The subtlety of this design lies in the sleek details, where the window frames are located behind the brickwork and the eaves ends in a sharp overhang. Unsurprisingly, that sense of taste and styling is no coincidence, since Elke has her own interior studio. This made designing the holiday home in Halle a true collaboration, in which the forces were joined.

Regarding the sleeping spaces, the challenge was to create spaciousness with 1 master bedroom and 3 possible sleeping places for the children. And we succeeded. There is also skylight in the children’s bedroom, so that they can look at the stars at night. Despite the fact that the holiday home is only 70 m2, it has a spacious feeling and appearance, partly due to the 5,5 meter high ceiling with wooden beams in view. This makes the house appear large, especially in the kitchen and living room, which are spatially connected to each other.

The cooperation was smooth, pleasant and efficient. It was really a collaboration between the architect and the entrepreneurs. For example, Elke contributed ideas about what the house should look like from the inside, the surface area and the economic interpretation – while for Jochem, the focus was on the architectural appearance, efficient spaces, materialisation, technical drawing, and communication with the contractor.

Vincent and Elke are happy with the process and the end result. Designing a luxury holiday home is one thing, but designing a luxury, unique, and sustainable holiday home with spatial challenges and a limited budget is something else. All challenges have been efficiently tackled and solved, with a beautiful result.

Best of all: A second holiday home is coming up in Weert! This house will be slightly larger, but with the same sustainable character and luxurious appearance. We are honoured and excited to be involved in this project again.