Crabe Fantôme

Crabe Fantôme is a minimalist residential building located in Watermael-Boitsfort, Belgium, designed by O.U.V.R.A.G.E.S. The transformation of a neighborhood restaurant into housing typically follows a predictable path – gut the interior, maximize floor area, deliver fixed apartments. O.U.V.R.A.G.E.S. takes a fundamentally different approach with Crabe Fantôme, treating adaptive reuse not as erasure but as infrastructure building. The project establishes a framework capable of evolving through future economic and social shifts rather than locking the structure into a single residential configuration.

Three vertical circulation cores anchor the intervention, a structural decision that shapes everything that follows. These cores divide the existing footprint into three zones, each already possessing the necessary access and services to function independently. The building can operate as a single dwelling today and subdivide into three autonomous units tomorrow without demolition, replumbing, or major reconstruction. This is not speculative flexibility – it is deliberate architectural order that anticipates change without prescribing it.

The heritage value of the original restaurant building informed the scale and material choices of two additions. A ground floor extension and a raised roof with integrated loggia expand the usable area while maintaining visual continuity with the existing structure. Both additions use timber construction, a choice that minimizes embodied carbon while creating a legible distinction between old and new. The loggia introduces light through two sliding skylights, transforming what would have been residual attic space into habitable rooms. The gesture is economical – adding density without altering the building’s fundamental character or overwhelming its context.

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