Clean - keeping a house

Starting from a personal framework – my grandmother and grandfather’s move – I explore the concept of ‘household’. What can ‘household’ teach us as architects or spatial thinkers? Does the household still hold up at all? And what is the role of the architect after building?

Clément Braekevelt kiss the house


Clément Braekevelt kiss the house

Using some thinking models, I examine the situation of my grandparents. I stretch and unfold concepts. This work confronts the reader with the sensibility of time in architecture and thus with his/her/their own passage of time. I took a closer look at the concepts of house and keeping. I focus specifically on keeping. However, this is also why my grandparents moved out. They can no longer maintain the house and therefore they can no longer live there. So are living and maintaining inextricably linked?

Buildings are often conceived and designed as ‘permanent, stable and unchanging’ structures. In reality, however, this is a fallacy: buildings change, rot or languish over time. For this very reason, architecture is very much in relation to maintaining them, an often underexposed side. Inclusive space therefore also means making room for maintenance. How do we make our spaces maintainable, tangible for the most vulnerable among us?

Clément Braekevelt the pedestal of old age


Clément Braekevelt the love-hate relationship with the shower


Clément Braekevelt fresh air

Clément Braekevelt sokkel – plint – podium – kooi


Clément Braekevelt the invisible traveller in the house


Clément Braekevelt wipe your feet

The drain as a suggestion to a clean fragment or moment. We conduct water through our spaces, the water runs over the ground, each time taking dirt and dust particles with it on its way. The drain as a specific fragment that captures the water and dirt. It maintains us, it maintains the home. Dirt begins to accumulate. The drain gets clogged, we have to clean it out. The lid has to open. A subtle indentation in the lid is made, making it tangible, maintainable.

Clément Braekevelt clean – keeping a house


Clément Braekevelt the clean drain