Rational spirit

The most extreme variant of contemporary architecture has to be industrial style, i.e. the trend to recover and replicate abandoned factories and workshops. A genuine cultural phenomenon, industrial style architecture has swept through nearly all European countries since the end of the last century, and today is a force to be reckoned with in the renovation of degraded urban peripheries. A look at the garden of this private villa in Beugen, the Netherlands, refurbished in late 2015, proves how effective it can be.
The villa is located in a quiet residential area, in the province of Northern Brabant, and therefore in a mainly rural setting. The owners, however, were determined to give the place a look diametrically opposite to the natural context around them, and chose instead to pursue a distinctive urban logic through pure, essential, rigorous, industrial architecture. Square shapes and clearly defined volumes dominate both the exterior and the interior. Organic forms and rounded corners are completely absent from all rooms and furnishings. The choice of colours is also dictated by industrial tastes: shades of grey and rust reign uncontested, keeping natural colours at bay everywhere apart from the functional island of the kitchen and a few furnishing complements. Anthracite grey and metallic tones define the personality of the lounge where armchairs, sofa and seats are padded and upholstered in soft fabric but have an essential, geometric shape.
As often happens in buildings conceived to contain wide open spaces, here too the common denominator between the various functional areas is provided by the floors and wall coverings, for which the architects chose materials by Refin: textured Design Industry tiles in Oxyde Light colour (60×60 cm) for the exterior and smooth Design Industry tiles, again in Oxyde Light (and again in 60×60 cm) for the interior, with inserts of Urban motif tiles from the company’s Graffiti collection.
The textured Design Industry ceramics found in the garden and around the pool are not specifically intended for outdoor use. Nevertheless, the technical specifications of these porcelain tiles (resistance to frost, thermal shock, atmospheric agents, exceptional durability and the ability to withstand heavy loads and even vehicular traffic) make them perfectly suitable for outdoor applications. The floor tile collection replicates the tones and textures of rusting metals, both in the coated surface and in the chiaroscuro, an effect made even more effective by the large size of the tiles.
The design of the villa is by Luciën Van de Ven of the Dutch architects’ studio B Dutch (www.bdutch.nl), a team of professionals who have worked on the Luxor Theater in Rotterdam and on the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, among other commissions. The swimming pool is by the Mari company (www.mari.nl) of Wanssum in the province of Limburg. Rectangular in shape with dimensions of 1200x450x150 cm, it dominates, in perfect symmetry, the space in front of the pergola that serves as lunch area. In addition to the simple swimming pool with underwater lighting, the owners, who regularly visit spas and wellness centres, asked the architects to create their very own highly professional wellness area spanning indoors and out. The result is an excellent complex that includes a Turkish bath, sauna, infrared sauna, and spa bath.