Hasta La Ideas

Emerging Dutch firm Unknown Architects has renovated a 200-year-old house in Leiden by stripping back its interior, and inserting built-in furniture and a twisting white staircase (+ slideshow).

Daan Vulkers and Keimpke Zigterman of Unknown Architects were careful to restore some of the house’s character and spatial simplicity by removing non-original partitioned walls and suspended ceilings to create open-plan spaces on all three floors.

Wooden furniture elements were built on each level to accommodate seating areas, work surfaces and screens, while timber ceiling beams overhead were purposefully left uncovered to provide a contrast to the modern additions.

Keeping to their client’s preference that the kitchen was the hub of the home, the architects allowed it take over the entire middle floor.

Bleached nutwood was used here to build worktops and cupboards along the side wall, as well as a dining table with banquette seating and an adjoining dresser.

The ground floor can be used as an office, dining room or guest bedroom. Vulkers and Zigterman built a wooden platform at one end of the space, creating a raised seating and storage area that incorporates a fold-out guest bed.

A screen wall separates the staircase from a desk that cantilevers off one wall. It also contains recesses to provide extra storage.

The main bedroom occupies the loft and includes a new bamboo dresser.

Photography is by Raoul Kramer.

Read on for more text from Unknown Architects:

Unknown Architects completed the renovation of a 17th century house in the historic city centre of Leiden

Unknown Architects is established by two students, studying at the Technical University in Delft. During their studies they became curious about working with clients. As a part of the honours programme they started this project, where they tried to translate the ambitions and wishes of a client in a design proposal. This cooperation turned out so well that this client decided to commission Unknown Architects for their first project, which was completed in November 2012.

All the non-authentic parts of this monument, like partition walls and suspended ceilings, were removed to bring back the authentic character and spatial clarity. In this relatively small house three fixed multifunctional furniture elements were added.

The ground floor functions as office and second bedroom. One bamboo furniture element incorporates storage space and a platform, covering a guest bed which can be pulled out.

An important wish of the client was to make the kitchen “the heart of the house” where all activities could come together. This was translated in two kitchen elements, made out of bleached nutwood. The central element includes a table, kitchen dresser and a fixed bench that shields the stairwell andprovides the best sightlines to the outside.

On the second floor we added one small dresser made of bamboo shielding the stairwell and providing a place to sit under the dormer.

In this project, we worked with different carpenters who specialised in working with different materials. In order to create a varied experience when ascending through the apartment, we opted for a different choice of wood for the ground floor and the first floor. All the floors – rubber – and walls – fine clay stucco finish – have the same finish.

The uncovered ceilings are intentionally kept as we found them and form a contrast with the new.

Client: DoorZigt B.V.
Location: Leiden, The Netherlands
Program: renovation of house and office
Gross floor area: 75 m2
Project architects: Daan Vulkers, Keimpke Zigterman
Interior design: Unknown Architects
Contractor: Bouwbedrijf Degewij
Interior fit-out: Klaas Olthoff Keukenmakerij, Intopmaat

The post Unknown Architects updates 200-year-old house
with twisting staircase and wooden furniture appeared first on Dezeen.

Horizontal grooves create tactile stripes across the plaster-covered walls of this house in Leiden, the Netherlands, by architects GAAGA (+ slideshow).

Named Stripe House, the three-storey residence is one of the 670 architect-designed homes being completed in the residential district masterplanned by architects MVRDV.

The building is located at the end of a row of houses and the stripes wrap around all three exposed elevations.

“The grooves are not purely decorative, but also have an architectural function,” architect Arie Bergsma told Dezeen. “They enhance the ‘all-sidedness’ of the volume, to link the facades and enhance the perspectival effect of the cube-like shape.”

Bergsma also explained how the grooves make the facade more tactile. “The funny thing that we did not expect is that a lot of people are actually touching the facade with their hands,” he said.

The stripy grey walls also extend beyond the front of the house to enclose a small garden, which leads residents into the dining room and kitchen on the first floor.

A concrete staircase connects the ground floor with the first floor living room, while metal stairs lead up to bedrooms on the top floor.

We’re previously featured other housing projects from the development zone in Leiden. See them all here, including two others by GAAGA.

Photography is by Marcel van der Burg.

Here are a few words from GAAGA:

Stripe House

Stripe House is a small, mixed-use house located in the city of Leiden, The Netherlands. It takes its name from the characterizing horizontal stripes carved deep into the façade.

The house resides in a new urban planning area where clients can develop their own houses. It is on a corner plot adjacent to the park nearby and south-east of pedestrian streets.

Despite its limited size, the plot is not entirely built on. One quarter of the plot is reserved for a small enclosed garden, creating a soft transition from public to private space as well as a distance to neighbouring houses. Opting for a garden implied also a concentration of program on one side of the plot.

The cube-like structure encloses a stacking of three floors, all similar in size but different in program. Going upwards the functions have an increasingly private nature. The ground floor houses the office space and the patio, the next level contains the kitchen, living and dining space, while the upper floor holds two bedrooms and a bathroom.

The large void along the north façade is the focal point in the house. It connects the two upper floors and it spatially zones the kitchen area. The enormous window at the top offers an abundance of natural light as well as an impressive and poetic sight on the Dutch sky.

Because the house is situated on a corner it has an almost all-round orientation and presence. There are not many window openings, but the ones that are present are large and oriented towards interesting views. On the first floor the three windows together form a triptych. They show three different scenes each representing a specific side of the house: the park on the east side, the neighboring houses on the west and the sky on the north.

Plans – click above for larger image

The huge exterior walls are made tangible and appealing by means of horizontal grooves in the plaster. The grooves, with a total length of approximately 7000 meters, are handmade and carved into a semi-hardened plaster by using several moulds. The result is an unparalleled piece of craftsmanship.

Section

The Stripe house is also a very sustainable house that scores well in several energy performance and environmental index calculations and labels.

Elevation detail

Architects: GAAGA
Team: Esther Stevelink and Arie Bergsma
Location: Leiden, The Netherlands
Realisation: 2010 – 2012
Contractor: Verbeij Bouw, Boskoop.
Plasterwork: Mulder Afbouw – Maarten Mulder
Structural Engineering: IMD Raadgevende Ingenieurs BV, Rotterdam
Energy performance & building physics: GAAGA – Arie Bergsma
Paintings: Marion van Egmond, Emmy Stevelink-Willemsen

The post Stripe House
by GAAGA appeared first on Dezeen.

This corner house by Sophie Valla Architects and Marc Koehler Architects is the latest of 670 architect-designed homes to be completed at a new development masterplanned by architects MVRDV in Leiden, the Netherlands.

Called Twisted Corner, the home is part of the Nieuw Leyden district, located on the site of a former slaughterhouse. See more Dezeen stories about houses in Nieuw Leyden.

The house comprises three floors that differ in plan to create the irregular angles of the facade.

Grey panels in graduating shades give the false impression of a shadow on the house exterior.

More stories about Dutch houses on Dezeen »

Photography is by Luuk Kramer.

Here are some more details from Sophie Valla:

Twisted Corner

In Leiden (Netherlands), private commissioning was chosen for the development of the residential area Nieuw Leyden on the former slaughterhouse site. For the house in the corner plot that the studio Sophie Valla Architects was asked to design, the corner was chosen as starting point and inspiration. The end result offers the inhabitants an unexpected sense of space and changing views.

For this high density area bordering the city centre, MVRDV in Rotterdam conceived a master plan based on a double ground level: closed building blocks on half sunken parking-lots. This allowed for a densely built neighbourhood, but green and with little traffic. A common coordinator, contractor and advisors worked on each building block. Then each plot owner was able to design his house according to his own needs and wishes.

The house was built for a young family. From the beginning, the value of the corner position of the plot was fully exploited. The clients were extensively involved in the conception and building process, watching over and nourishing the tectonic quality of the design.

The lateral façade of the house ending the block presents an intriguing and dynamic play of lines and volume. This is brought about by shifts in the orientation of the façade at each of the three floors. A ‘transformation’ of the geometry of the front and back façades over the length of this side is thereby created. Four supporting columns in the house are freeing the lateral façade from its load bearing function, enabling this free play.

Click above for larger image

The horizontal transformation is accompanied over the whole façade by a vertical articulation of the surface panelling and of the window frames. The high and narrow windows on this wall not only emphasise the vertical articulation; from the inside they also give clearly framed views while their form limits the possibility of looking in.

On the ground floor, bordered by a pedestrian street and the park, is a playroom for the children. The living space is on the first floor. The large window at the front looks into the park, creating a spacious quality inside and offering interesting perspectives to the park.

Materials

The façades were executed with prefabricated wooden frame panels.
Panels of Eternit in different shades of grey were used to cover the façades. The distribution of the greys accentuates the flowing transformation on the lateral façade and reduces the cutting loss of the Eternit to a minimum. The extra thick seams between the panels, as well as the heavily profiled wooden window frames, accentuate the vertical articulation of this façade.

Private house in Nieuw Leyden, Leiden

Address: Alexander Gogelstraat 6, 2316 DV Leiden
Client: Floor en Barry Pepers
Design: Sophie Valla architects in collaboration with Marc Koehler architects
Project architect and realisation: Sophie Valla architects
Team: Wouter Hendrikson, Petr Ulrich
Construction advisor: Buro Broersma
Installations advisor: S&W, van Leeuwen
Contractor: KbK Bouw
Bruto surface: 233 m2
Netto surface: 122 m2
Completion: February 2011

See also:

.

V-House by GAAGA	V35K18 by Pasel Kuenzel Architects	V21K07 by Pasel Kuenzel Architects

Rotterdam studio Pasel Kuenzel Architects have completed another house for MVRDV‘s masterplan in Leiden, the Netherlands (see the other houses here).

Called V35K18, the residence is separated from the house behind by a narrow glazed section, which forms the entrance.

The glazing covers a corridor extending the full height of the building, sandwiched between the two houses.

A long staircase reaches from the entrance at ground level right up to the second floor, with landings leading off into each level.

A work space is located at ground level, living spaces on the first floor and bedrooms on the top floor.

The architects have designed 10 other houses on this former industrial site and this residence sits opposite the zinc-clad V36K08/09 house in our earlier story.

Photographs are by Marcel van der Burg.

All our stories on this series of houses by Pasel Kuenzel Architects »

More residential architecture on Dezeen »

More architecture on Dezeen »

Here’s some more information from the architects:

RESIDENCE * V35K18, the Netherlands

V35K18 residence is located on the southern corner of an urban block comprising 18 utterly different houses. Due to its distinct design, clear materialisation and dark color the compact building forms a dominant ‘corner stone’ within the existing urban fabric.

All architectural details are subordinate to this principle. The massive brick volume is detached from the adjacent neighbour building by a glazed void and the square floor-to-ceiling windows are detailed flush into the facade. The smaller but longer ‘Hilversum-format’ of the bricks allows for an surprising elegancy and noblesse, and at the same time the black color of the facade associates directly with the traditional Dutch buildings dating from the 16th, 17th and 18th century.

Functional, the residence is set up in a classical Dutch way: work related program is located on the ground floor, living on the bel-etage and sleeping on the upper floor. The spectacular cascade stairwell situated in the glazed void on the long side of the building, generates an overwhelming space between the public and private realm.

Architect: pasel.kuenzel architects, Rotterdam , NL
Team: R. Pasel, F. Künzel
Client: Private
Location: Leiden, NL

See also:

.

V36K08/09 by Pasel Kuenzel Architects	V21K07 by Pasel Kuenzel Architects	V21K01 by Pasel Kuenzel Architects