A De Haan coastal residence by GRAUX & BAEYENS with a white-washed brick facade extended beyond the structure to provide privacy

House C-VL is a residence in De Haan, a coastal town in West Flanders, Belgium, designed by GRAUX & BAEYENS architecten. The project takes a direct approach to the tension between openness and privacy that defines coastal residential work: the exterior facade is white-washed brick, extended beyond the structure of the house to create screening that protects the inhabitants from direct sightlines without enclosing the building behind a solid wall.

The extension of the facade plane beyond the building envelope is the project's defining formal move. It gives the house a presence along the street that reads as deliberate rather than defensive, the brickwork wall becoming a spatial element in its own right rather than simply cladding. The material choice, white-washed brick, keeps the house in dialogue with the vernacular coastal architecture of the region while the gesture of extending the facade plane beyond the structure places it clearly in contemporary territory.

Inside, the construction is left exposed. Brick walls and steel structural elements are visible throughout, maintaining the material honesty of the exterior within the domestic interior. The contrast between the refined white exterior and the raw interior fabric gives the house a layered material character: the building presents one face to the street and reveals another to its inhabitants.