Home Tour | Latem by Benoît Viaene

Located just outside Ghent, Benoît Viaene’s latest residential project reveals little of its challenging past. “Built in the 80s, it had awkward proportions, strange details and a floorplan that didn’t match up with its structure. It was, quite honestly, one of the most unappealing homes I’ve ever worked on,” Viaene says. “On top of that, despite its location backing onto a nature reserve, the home did little to embrace its surroundings.”

Viaene rectified these issues by reworking the floor plan to strengthen the home’s connection to the garden, which involved extending the ground floor to create a new pitched-roof living pavilion housed within an exposed timber structure. The interiors were also completely transformed, adopting the architect’s signature “perfectly imperfect” style, characterised by fluid forms and raw materials.

A focal point of the project is the giant beech tree, which was there when the client purchased the property. “Much of the home is designed to engage with that tree, making it a natural anchor,” Viaene says. He highlights how the colour of its bark shifts with the changing seasons; as Belgium transitions into winter, the bark deepens to a rich brown, while in the warmer months, it takes on a subtle green hue. The interiors showcase wood in diverse and creative applications to pay homage to this.