Publisher: Ruby Press Berlin
ISBN: 978-3-9813436-5-6
175 x 245 mm, 240 pages, English

Available here

A couple lived in a small house on the edge of a forest. It was their first house. After two decades of homeliness, they had, however, outgrown their home, both mentally and physically. In 2003, they invited 51N4E, the Belgian architecture firm, to redesign their house. Six years later, the architects had gutted the interior and walled the exterior with a three-meter-tall steel enclosure. The immutability of the single-family house was replaced with stimulation, challenges, and open-ended spaces, which granted the house a new lease of life. Upon its completion, the owners decided to open up their residence as a guest house for artists, designers, writers, and thinkers. Each person invited would receive a carte blanche, a fridge full of food, and the opportunity to have the run of the house without its inhabitants. Reasons for Walling a House collects seven beautiful yet challenging “gifts” left behind by the first guests to stay at the house. Radically personal, their contributions are less about the house itself and more about the inspirations that guests derived from it—the reasons for walling a house.