June 19, 2019

Four Residences That Pop With Personality

This quartet of residences in Belgium, Sicily, and Seattle pops with personality.

Bruges Residence by TC Plus. Photography by Luc Roymans/Living Inside.

Firm: TC Plus

Location: Bruges, Belgium

Standout: A dollhouse-like family residence, dating to the 1970s, reflects the architect-owner’s doctoral research into creating private spaces that can also be shared with the community at large: Ergo, a roofless outdoor room, with tinted-concrete walls and billowing sailcloth curtains, that’s wide open for the public to use.

Wachtebeke Residence by Gafpa. Photography by Luc Roymans/Living Inside.

Firm: Gafpa

Location: Wachtebeke, Belgium

Standout: Bucking the local trend to replicate traditional brick architecture, a weekend house manifests its modernism with a grid facade of standardized plywood panels, a floating spiral staircase in black-painted steel, and glass walls that survey the adjacent nature reserve.

Seattle Residence by Best Practice Architecture, Hybrid Architecture, and Steven Lazen. Photography by Ed Sozinho.

Firms: Best Practice Architecture, Hybrid Architecture,
and Steven Lazen

Location: Seattle

Standout: Multi-family living gets a vibrant, hospitality-style makeover with a complex of three townhouses enlivened by artist Sam Wood Wilson’s geometric stairwell and rooftop murals along with jaunty chromatic kitchen cabinets in low-fi painted MDF.

Noto Residence by Maria Giuseppina Grasso-Cannizzo. Photography by Nathalie Krag/Living Inside.

Firm: Maria Giuseppina Grasso-Cannizzo

Location: Noto, Sicily

Standout: In summer, pivoting cement-board louvers open this art-book editor’s 1,000-square-foot holiday home to rolling hills planted with olive and almond groves—and to the sea beyond—while in winter, they close like the pages of a portfolio to shutter the unoccupied structure against the elements.

Keep scrolling to view more photos of the projects >

Bruges Residence by TC Plus. Photography by Luc Roymans/Living Inside.
Bruges Residence by TC Plus. Photography by Luc Roymans/Living Inside.
Bruges Residence by TC Plus. Photography by Luc Roymans/Living Inside.
Bruges Residence by TC Plus. Photography by Luc Roymans/Living Inside.
Wachtebeke Residence by Gafpa. Photography by Luc Roymans/Living Inside.
Wachtebeke Residence by Gafpa. Photography by Luc Roymans/Living Inside.
Custom pink powder-coated railings and trim animate the facade of a Seattle townhouse by Best Practice Architecture, Hybrid Architecture, and Steven Lazen. Photography by Ed Sozinho.

Seattle Residence by Best Practice Architecture, Hybrid Architecture, and Steven Lazen. Photography by Ed Sozinho.
Seattle Residence by Best Practice Architecture, Hybrid Architecture, and Steven Lazen. Photography by Ed Sozinho.
Seattle Residence by Best Practice Architecture, Hybrid Architecture, and Steven Lazen. Photography by Ed Sozinho.
Noto Residence by Maria Giuseppina Grasso-Cannizzo. Photography by Nathalie Krag/Living Inside.
Noto Residence by Maria Giuseppina Grasso-Cannizzo. Photography by Nathalie Krag/Living Inside.
Noto Residence by Maria Giuseppina Grasso-Cannizzo. Photography by Nathalie Krag/Living Inside.

> See more from the Interior Design Summer Homes 2019 issue

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