This was the period of many new housing developments, especially in the pine forests of Oud-Turnhout, Vosselaar and Beerse. The client was a branch manager of a local bank on the Grote Markt in Turnhout. He and his wife had chosen a building plot in nearby Vosselaar because it contained a ridge that rises approximately 1.50 m from the street upward.. The plot is located close to that of Hoppenbrouwers and has the same orientation, with the east at the rear. In the preliminary design, Vanhout and Schellekens planned the garage, boiler room and playroom partly within this elevation, at street level. Half a level higher, they placed the kitchen with storage, dining area and living room in staggered rectangles. Above the lower section, they positioned the bedrooms and fireplace corner. The centre of the house was spatially developed with stairs and sections of the hall and living room at a height of one and a half storeys.
The client requested two adjustments: first, to place the two stair sections next to each other by the hall to simplify circulation, and second, to make everything more compact to control the budget. This made the final plan clearer: two overlapping rectangles with the fireplace corner in the overlapping section. Despite its reduction, the circulation zone retained the spatiality it had in the preliminary design. This is further enhanced by several interior windows and by the row of rectangular skylights in the fireplace corner, above the stairs leading to it, and in the hallway. The good collaboration between the architects and the client resulted in a modern home that exudes domesticity with relatively few elements and without wasting space. Several freestanding exterior walls provide shelter to the courtyard by the storage area, the terrace by the living room, and the elevated terrace of the bedroom. The slope of the terrain was completely preserved. Rik Carlier, who had also designed Vanhout’s garden, only landscaped around the house. The forest at the rear was preserved. It became the playground for the neighborhood children.
As was customary, the clients had previously visited some other houses deigned by the architects, including their newly completed studio. In the exterior of the van den Nieuwenhuyzen house, the brutalism is somewhat less pronounced: the concrete is only visible in the lintels above the windows and not as an indication of the roof plates. Inside, however, we find all the raw materials: the brick walls, the concrete ceiling, the pine wood in the bedroom section, and the teak of the built-in cabinets. Besides the sense of humanity and protection they exude, the clients point out their practical advantages: never having to paint walls and ceilings, and the children being able to play freely. The tones of the materials were complemented by the black window frames and blood-red interior doors. The steel band that was planned for the windows and still appears in the front door was replaced with glass during the construction process to allow a view of the garden from the armchairs. The planter with river pebbles at the fireplace corner window was also covered in order to accommodate a desk.
