Axel Vervoordt Crafts a Poetic Home in the Belgian Countryside For His Family

The designer, along with the family, enlisted architect Tatsuro Miki to bring their ideas into reality. The founder of his eponymous firm, Tatsuro Miki Architects, he is a Japanese talent who has been based in Brussels for more than two decades. Miki and Vervoordt are frequent collaborators, and together they’ve completed several projects, including the acclaimed TriBeCa Penthouse at the Greenwich Hotel. They coauthored the book Wabi Inspirations (Flammarion, 2011), which has become an essential reference in wabi-sabi philosophy in design and architecture.

“In a lot of our work,” says Miki, “we look for a dialogue between East and West. In this project, we wanted to combine the formality of this old home with a new barnlike structure that incorporated wabi elements.” In conversation, Vervoordt and Miki often continue each other’s sentences, to enhance and overlap the meaning of what they are trying to convey. “Yes,” says Vervoordt, “the old part of the house is formal, and the new addition is more meditative—like yin-yang. Each room has a unique atmosphere. When you bring it all together, it’s like one world.”

A serene corridor connects the original house with the new wing. Windows are placed just below eye level to carefully frame views and create a contemplative mood in the transitional space.

Clay plaster walls, wide-plank burnt pine flooring, and a natural linen bed cover are the main elements of the minimally furnished primary bedroom.

What a peaceful world it is. The sense of harmony arises from the balance between the two structures—the 19th-century structure is all about color and layers, and the new barn is connected to nature with the duo’s iconic minimal magic. A long, almost empty corridor connects the two parts. Strategically placed windows have a deeper meaning. They are set below eye level, too low to see directly outside when walking down the hallway. “The windows offer a view to the ground,” Vervoordt says. “Like in a monastery, the long walkway is a preparation for the mind.” Miki uses the Japanese term roji to describe the feeling—a pathway that serves as a transitional space on the way to a teahouse. “It’s about openness and preparing the mind to enter into another world.” A window in the primary bedroom is also positioned low, at the height of the bed, to offer a restrained view for calmness and quiet.

A circa 1962 painting by Ryuji Tanaka hangs in the corridor that connects the original house with the new structure.

In the primary bedroom, a window is placed strategically low to offer a perfectly framed view from the bed.

Tadelakt plaster clads a bathroom’s walls.