Architectural firm: Magalie Munters Architecture
Project name: Villa Nouvelle Vague
Location: Oostduinkerke, Koksijde, Belgium
Size: 330 square meters

On the edge of a nature reserve, in a landscape of sand dunes on the North Sea coast, Magalie Munters has created a home that is almost an oxymoron: a piece of architecture that intertwines the massive, austere character of Brutalism with the fluid dynamism of organic architecture; anti-mimetic yet, at the same time, in deep dialogue with its surroundings. The house, partially embedded in the ground, emerges as a compact mass of exposed concrete, bringing together structure and shell in a single material expression. Whilst the building takes on a clean, linear geometry towards the garden, the façade facing the road comes alive like a wave sculpted by the wind, recalling the filigree pattern of sand after low tide in its material texture. Inside, the space is punctuated by archetypal elements in raw concrete, like fragments of a past life washed up by the sea: from the staircase, almost the spinal structure of a fossilised organism, to the monolithic, stripped-back blocks of the kitchen, bathrooms and built-in seating. The dramatic tone of the composition is tempered by the whitewashed surfaces of the walls, whose smooth, immaculate texture evokes the interior of a seashell.