Twiggy in Ghent, Belgium by Architecten de Vylder Vinck Taillieu

The accommodation of retail space within former domestic space presents several problems. The facade is one, another is circulation. Here, in an old house in Ghent, local architects de Vylder Vinck Taillieu had to deal with the quandary of a narrow original staircase that was unfit according to local fire regulations, and yet was to be retained for aesthetic reasons. Their solution was to construct an entirely new staircase on the back of the building, an irregular zigzagging volume camouflaged to mirror the facade against which it presses like a chameleon climbing up a wall. Interior spaces have also been remodelled and a floor removed, leaving period fireplaces dangling bizarrely in mid-air. The result of their modifications is uncanny in its literal, German sense: the home made ‘unheimlich’, unhomely, by commerce.