Shar — concrete shell with blue steel structure and timber joists

Shar

Studio & Dwelling · Antwerp
2025
Type
Studio & Dwelling · Sustainability
Location
Antwerp
Year
2025
Status
Concept

(03) — About the project

Shar is an intervention that leaves the existing structure entirely untouched — a new dwelling that nests within a raw concrete shell without taking anything away from it.

On the ground floor lies a working studio for a sculptor: a tall, empty workspace where light falls in through narrow slots. Above it, reached by a slender spiral staircase, the living space for one person unfolds — kitchen, bath and sleeping, compact and self-contained.

Function is read through colour. The load-bearing structure — stairs, beams and railing — stands entirely in soft blue; the inhabited core, kitchen and bathroom, is finished in yellow mortex. Blue carries, yellow inhabits. Sustainability here lies in restraint: nothing is demolished, everything is legible and reversible.

On the materials

The existing shell was kept as it was: vertical formwork concrete, raw and earthen, with the grain of the boards still visible. Against it, the new intervention reads as something of its own — placed loose, reversible, recognisable by colour. The steel structure and spiral staircase are powder-coated in a single soft blue; the staircase turns like a light spiral through the double height, carried by an oak joist layer for the upper floor.

The inhabited functions are clad in yellow mortex — a continuous, mineral finish without joints that binds kitchen, bath and basin into one warm volume. Stainless steel for the taps and the freestanding shower, and nothing else to disturb the two colours. Blue for what carries, yellow for what inhabits: the structure itself tells where work is done and where life is lived.