I Thought I’d Seen Big Glass Doors Before, Then I Saw This House Open
From the outside, the rear of this Antwerp townhouse reads as a quiet glass wall. Flat, controlled, almost reserved. Nothing signals movement. Then the panels rotate, and what looked like fixed glazing reveals itself as two enormous pivoting openings that swing the house wide open to the garden.
Designed by Sculp[IT]Architects, the extension replaces the idea of doors entirely. Each pivoting panel measures nearly 10 feet wide and almost 20 feet tall, tall enough to span two full levels. When closed, they act like windows. When open, they erase the boundary between interior and exterior so completely that the kitchen and dining space feel outdoors.
The effect is not theatrical. It is spatial. Light drops deeper into the house, air moves freely, and the garden stops feeling separate. The black metal frames stay thin and precise, holding insulated glass by Saint-Gobain, so the scale never turns heavy or industrial.
What makes this project linger is how normal it feels once open. The house does not look transformed, it behaves differently. This is not about having the biggest pivoting elements. It is about realizing that sometimes the most radical move is letting an entire wall decide to move.