Daylight runs far into this modern townhouse interior, pulled in from both the front and rear sides of the five-level house. That long reach of light gives the rooms their pace. Living areas sit at the edges, while the more functional spaces are tucked into the centre, so the plan reads clearly as you move through it. The basement, bel étage, and upper floors each take on a different tone, but the circulation stays easy to read through glass, openings, and carefully placed built-ins.

Rooms arranged around the view

On the bel étage, a seating area faces the water at the front, while the rear side looks toward the urban core. The result is not a single fixed viewpoint but a sequence of them. Upstairs, the bedroom takes in the same daylight, and the office is set toward the city side. Between those rooms sit the wardrobe and bathroom, which keeps the private zones compact and lets the windows do more of the work. The double pivot doors on the first floor widen the sightlines and prevent the hallway from feeling enclosed.

The layout makes each floor read differently without breaking the house into fragments. Large windows bring in light deep enough to show the grain of the materials, the edges of the joinery, and the shift from one surface to another. In a modern townhouse interior like this, the plan is doing as much visual work as the finishes. You notice how the rooms open and close around the views, and how the centre of the house is reserved for circulation, storage, and the more practical pieces of the programme.

A basement kitchen that holds the room

Down in the basement, the kitchen stretches out in a long line. It is paired with an island that also carries the dining table, so the central piece reads almost like a sculptural block rather than a separate item. That placement adds depth to the room and gives the floor a clear axis. The long run of cabinetry and the island are set far enough apart to keep the kitchen easy to use, while their proportions help the space feel measured rather than crowded.

Custom interior joinery appears in the partition between the kitchen and utility room, where several functions are folded into one wall. The same approach returns at the end of the dining table, where the wall holds the television and built-in fireplace. The material language stays restrained, but the wall surfaces carry real weight in the composition. They break up the basement without adding visual noise, and they keep the eye moving from one function to the next.

Built-in storage and a wall that does more than divide

The wall at the dining end is more than a boundary. It handles storage, display, and the fireplace in one move, which allows the basement kitchen to remain open while still feeling anchored. A similar wall element appears in the bel étage seating area, echoing the same logic in a different setting. This repetition gives the house a thread of continuity, yet each floor still keeps its own rhythm through colour, texture, and light.

There is a quiet discipline to the joinery. Cabinet fronts run in straight lines, edges are kept tight, and the built-in fireplace sits inside a dark recess that pulls attention inward. The kitchen island, the wall units, and the adjacent circulation zone all work together to set the depth of the room. It is a space built from planes and thresholds, not from decorative gestures.

Materials shift as you move upward

Each level has its own surface character. In the basement, the cement-like poured floor gives the space a tougher reading, with a matte finish that suits the lower level and the larger kitchen volume. On the bel étage, wood flooring changes the mood immediately. The boards soften the footing and make the seating area feel more settled. That shift in material is important because it keeps the house from flattening into one continuous look. The floors mark the changes in use as clearly as the walls do.

Elsewhere, white wall finishes, dark window frames, and timber panels create a restrained backdrop for the rooms. The contrast between pale surfaces and darker lines appears again in the windows and in the framing around the fireplace. Nothing here relies on ornament. Instead, the house uses repetition, proportion, and the contrast of materials to give each floor its own intensity. It is a modern townhouse interior that lets surface and structure work together.

Light, glass, and the pauses between rooms

The staircase zone shows how carefully the house manages transitions. Straight runs, white walls, and crisp junctions keep the movement between floors legible. Glass also plays a major role: it opens views through the house and softens the boundary between rooms. In several images, the glazing creates a direct line from one interior zone to another, so even closed-off spaces still feel connected to the rest of the plan.

Those pauses between rooms matter as much as the rooms themselves. A glimpse through a glazed opening, a turn by the stair, or a view across the dining table changes the scale of the house from moment to moment. The architecture of the interior depends on these small shifts. Instead of one broad open space, the house is made of layers, each one defined by the way light reaches it and the way a wall or opening frames the next view.

What the photographs reveal

The photographs show the living room with its built-in fireplace set into a timber wall, the kitchen with a long island and a white tile backsplash, and the bathrooms with their long vanity walls and oval freestanding bath. Wide windows with dark frames appear throughout, often filtered by soft curtains that temper the light without closing the room off. In the office zone, a long table sits beside a broad window, which reinforces the sense that daylight has been used as a planning tool rather than an afterthought.

Even the exterior glimpses support the same reading: white wall surfaces, dark frames, and a disciplined window rhythm. But inside, the focus stays on the sequence of spaces and the way custom interior joinery supports them. The house is not treated as one continuous gesture. It is composed floor by floor, with each level given its own material register and its own relationship to the view.

Photography: René Gonkel

Text: Paul Geerts