Hasta La Ideas

Thatching covers the walls as well as the roof at this house in Zoetermeer, the Netherlands, by Dutch architect Arjen Reas (+ slideshow).

Located on the edge of the city, the building was designed as a cross between a contemporary house and a traditional Dutch farmhouse. “We wanted to capture this rural and urban living in one design,” Arjen Reas told Dezeen.

The thatched cladding begins just above ground level and wraps up over all four sides of the two-storey gabled structure, interrupted only by projecting canopies, windows and a chimney.

“We used the thatch like a warm hat and pulled it down over the edges,” explained Reas. “The benefit of this is that the thatch becomes touchable. Also when looking through the windows, it surrounds you.”

Tall narrow windows create vertical slices into the roof and walls on the two side elevations. Meanwhile, glazed doors fold open from the rear elevation to connect the living room with a terrace and garden.

“One of the priorities while designing this house was to provide the residents with a magnificent view of the scenic landscape,” adds the architect.

A rectangular volume projects forward of the front elevation to create a two-storey-high sheltered porch, while a ramped driveway slopes down to meet a parking garage in the basement.

Storage areas are also located on the lowest floor, while living and dining rooms occupy the ground floor and the first floor contains four bedrooms and a bathroom beneath its sloping ceilings.

Thatched roofs have cropped on a few recent architecture projects in the Netherlands. Amsterdam studio Inbo has completed a town hall with thatching covering five curved blocks, while Rotterdam studio Maxwan has renovated and extended a thatched cottage.

See more thatched architecture »
See more Dutch houses on Dezeen »

Photography is by Kees Hageman.

Here’s some more information from Arjen Reas:

This project is a private assignment for an entrepreneur from the city centre, and the question was posed, how could the family find peace on the edge of that same city. The site located where the city and open planes meet, and therefore has an obvious recognition that cannot be ignored.

In the earlier times people here used to work with shapes for houses that were pure and plain, thatch was used as a cover for the roofs and the walls where made out of stones and a clay plaster.

We were challenged to fuse together traditional ideals with a contemporary house design, a cubistic shape placed in a desolate landscape, where all urban feeling is gone when you look at the surroundings. Contemporary rural living was chosen as a project to mix the two in pure form.

Above: basement floor plan – click for larger image

New Dutch Design

When working with pure forms it’s also important to look at simplicity, durability and expression. The mix of two very different but recognizable materials in the Dutch landscape results in a both a modern and traditional structure. The fine texture of the thatch in combination with the smooth white plaster surfaces a house is formed that is very modern and traditional at the same time. The compactness of the thatch gives optimal protection against the elements.

Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image

The interior successfully combines natural materials creating something unique. By designing a natural interior certain tranquility arises throughout each room and now there is also room left for the residents to restyle their space continuously.

Above: first floor plan – click for larger image

One of the priorities while designing this house was to provide the residents with a magnificent view of the scenic landscape. This was successfully done within each room in the house. Daylight falls deep into the house and lights up the space within and gives it a dynamic character during the day, while by night the house radiates its light to its surroundings and thereby marking its position in the landscape.

Above: section one – click for larger image

Layout

Via the slope residents can park their car in the basement, where there are also two extra storage rooms and an entrance to go up by stairs and enter the main living space with a beautiful open kitchen where all the modern comforts are integrated in. When walking through this open space towards the large transparent slide doors, you immediately get pulled to go into the garden. Here you can sit and relax or walk on the plateau to oversee the whole landscape.

Above: section two – click for larger image

The main entrance is surprisingly spacious and with its transparent separation with the kitchen a lot of light is coming in. Here you can enter the scullery, toilet, wardrobe or walk straight up the stairs to the second level. On this level you can go to the main bedroom, the second bathroom and three other bedrooms.

Above: west elevation – click for larger image

In the master bedroom the residents can choose to go and have a spacious shower or to go and take a bath before or after going to bed. When sitting in bath or lying in bed, you still have a great open view at the landscape.

Above: east elevation – click for larger image

Designer: Arjen Reas
Location: Zoetermeer, The Netherlands
Project area: 744 m2
Floor area: ca 360m2
Project year: 2009-2010
Construction: Adviesbureau Docter
Contractor: C.L. de Boer & Zn BV
Thatch: Voogt Rietdekkers

The post Living on the Edge
by Arjen Reas appeared first on Dezeen.

This house in Tokyo by Apollo Architects & Associates has skylights in the roof and holes in the floor plates, allowing daylight to reach right down to the basement (+ slideshow).

Named Neut, the house was designed for a pair of music-lovers, so Apollo Architects & Associates was asked to add a studio with soundproofed concrete walls in the basement of the three-storey structure.

The studio opens out to a glazed triple-height courtyard, which benefits from the light filtering in from above.

A second courtyard is located on the opposite side of the house on the ground floor. This space also sits below a skylight, although it is interrupted by a latticed deck on the uppermost floor.

All bedrooms are positioned on the ground floor, while a living room and bathroom occupy the top floor. All of these rooms face down onto the courtyards through floor-to-ceiling windows.

Interior surfaces are finished in a mixture of raw concrete, white plaster and timber panels. Meanwhile, the facade is dominated by timber louvres, which enclose a cantilevered balcony at the edge of the living room.

Tokyo-based Apollo Architects & Associates is led by Satoshi Kurosaki. The studio also recently completed Still, a concrete house for a surgeon, and Flag, a narrow house with a glazed ground-floor gallery.

See more architecture by Apollo Architects & Associates »

Photography is by Masao Nishikawa.

Here’s a project description from Apollo Architects & Associates:

Neut, Suginami ward, Tokyo

The ophthalmologist couple purchased this narrow, but deep, parcel of land in a quiet neighborhood to build a house where they could enjoy their hobby of listening to the music.

On the basement level, the courtyard and double-pane glazing provide sound-buffer for this RC-structure studio which is insulated on the exterior.

Natural light enters the studio through the courtyard and makes the space exceptionally inhabitable as a basement.

The balcony extends from the building and acts as the canopy over the garage with pilotis and entrance.

The horizontal wooden slats are used as balcony balustrade to block the view from the street while allowing the air to breeze through.

The randomly sized wooden pieces give the facade distinctive appearance. The ground floor contains private rooms such as master bedroom and children’s bedrooms.

The second floor, on the other hand, is intended as family room. The generously-sized gabled-roof space has two courtyards which accentuate the floor plan with their curves.

Through the clerestory windows, the outside scenery and natural light enter the space.

The wet area is separated from the living room by the tiled wall with its upper part glazed. The same wooden panel of the living room ceiling is used in the wet area to create the appearance of a continuous space.

When viewed from inside, the horizontal wooden louver also accentuates the interior space while securing the privacy.

By using only the simple finishing material on the interior, the space has the austere and coordinated feel.

Furthermore, the combination of concrete and wood, as well as the gabled roof motif add warmth to the room’s ambience.

This design technique allows the occupants to forget that they are in a dense residential district. It is one of the most popular solutions in the urban setting.

The post Neut by Apollo Architects
& Associates appeared first on Dezeen.

Milwaukee office Johnsen Schmaling Architects chose a palette of bare concrete, cedar and anodised metal to construct this small family retreat in a remote Wisconsin forest (+ slideshow).

Called Stacked Cabin, the house nestles against the sloping landscape of a small woodland clearing, allowing entrances on two of its three compact floors.

Thick concrete walls surround rooms at the base of the house, while upper floors are clad with the lightweight metal panels and cedar is used for the doors and window frames.

“The meticulously detailed project takes advantage of readily available materials used in the region’s farmstead architecture,” explains Johnsen Schmaling Architects. “Exposed concrete, cedar, anodised metal and cementitious plaster all echo the muted, earthy hues of the surrounding forest and rock formations.”

A workshop occupies most of the ground floor level, alongside a small washroom and equipment area. A large cedar door opens this floor out to the forest, while a smaller door leads up to the domestic spaces on the floors above.

On the first floor, a living room is sandwiched between a kitchen and a pair of bedrooms. There are no walls between the rooms, but a set of curtains allows residents to partition the spaces when necessary.

The front and rear walls of the living room are glazed and slide open for cross ventilation during the warmer summer months.

The uppermost floor contains only a study, which the architects describe as an “elevated observatory with treetop views”.

Johnsen Schmaling Architects also recently completed a rusted steel cabin for a musician, which was named a winner in the AIA Small Project Awards a few days ago. See more architecture in the US.

Photography is by John J. Macaulay.

Here’s a project description from Johnsen Schmaling Architects:

Stacked Cabin by Johnsen Schmaling Architects

This modest, 880 square-foot cabin for a young family sits at the end of an old logging road, its compact volume hugging the edge of a small clearing in a remote Wisconsin forest.

Above: site plan

The tight budget required a rigorously simple structure. In order to minimize the building’s footprint and take advantage of the sloped site, the horizontally organized components of a traditional cabin compound – typically an open-plan longhouse with communal living space, an outhouse, and a freestanding toolshed – were reconfigured and stacked vertically. The bottom level, carved into the hill and accessible from the clearing, houses a small workshop, equipment storage, and a washroom, providing the infrastructural base for the living quarters above. A wood-slatted entry door opens to stairs that lead up to the open living hall centered around a wood-burning stove and bracketed by a simple galley kitchen and a pair of small, open sleeping rooms.

Above: floor plans – click for larger image

Floor-to-ceiling curtains on either end of the living hall can be moved or retracted, their undulating fabric and delicate texture adding a sensual dimension to the crisp interior palette. Depending on their arrangement, the curtains can provide privacy for the sleeping rooms, open them up to the main living space, or screen the kitchen when not in use. Large-scale lift-slide apertures along the sides of the living hall offer extensive views of the forest and direct access to an informal hillside terrace. In the summer, the apertures become screened openings, virtually transforming the living hall into a covered outdoor room and facilitating a high degree of cross-ventilation that eliminates the need for mechanical conditioning. A small study, originally conceived as another room adjacent to the living hall, was instead stacked on top of it, creating an intimate, elevated observatory with treetop views.

Above: sections – click for larger image

The meticulously detailed project takes advantage of readily available materials used in the region’s farmstead architecture. On the outside, exposed concrete, cedar, anodized metal, and cementitious plaster all echo the muted, earthy hues of the surrounding forest and rock formations. The material palette extends to the inside, where integrally colored polished concrete floors on the two main levels provide sufficiently durable surfaces against the periodic abuse from cross country skies, dogs, and muddy hiking boots. Walls, ceilings, and built-in cabinets are painted white, lightening up the interiors during the long winter months and providing a quiet, neutral foreground against which nature’s complex and ever-changing tableau, carefully framed by the cabin’s large openings, can unfold.

Above: exploded 3D diagram

The post Stacked Cabin by
Johnsen Schmaling Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch studio Personal Architecture has overhauled a traditional townhouse in The Hague by adding mezzanine floors, a glass elevation, a triple-height kitchen and a spiral staircase.

Whilst the front half of the three-storey house retains its original facade and layout, Personal Architecture removed the brickwork garden elevation and replaced it with a steel framework and full-height glass wall.

The architects then cut away sections of the first and second floors, creating a triple-height kitchen filled with natural light.

Four new mezzanines overlook the kitchen from the side of the house, providing a new bathroom, library and pantry that feature untreated pine walls and floors. A steel staircase spirals up between the levels and leads up to a rooftop terrace and hot tub.

Small sets of steps connect the four mezzanine levels with the three existing floors of the house, while the original staircases provide a link between floors at the front of the house.

Above the kitchen, a translucent polycarbonate wall lets light into the master bedroom though a walk-in wardrobe positioned at its back.

A wire-fence balustrade creates a balcony on the second floor, so residents can look down from an office to the kitchen below.

Other interesting house renovations from the Netherlands include a thatched cottage in the seaside town of Noordwijk and an old apartment block converted into a house. See more Dutch houses on Dezeen.

Photography is by René de Wit.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

The dilapidated state has necessitated a thorough reinforcement of the foundation and load-bearing structure of the entire house, opening up extraordinary possibilities in an otherwise commonplace apartment renovation.

The combination of ambitious design visions and a large measure of trust from the client have resulted in a rigorous and uncompromising redesign, in which voids and split levels accentuate the full height of Den Haag’s typical row houses.

The potential of the brick structure, the details such as glass-in-lead frames, and the characteristic “en-suite” room divisions were the deciding factors in purchasing the house, according to the clients.

Above: site plan

The tension between antique features and modern techniques is very evident in the redesign plan. The classical street façade is restored to its former glory, from ground to third floor.

Above: ground floor plan

Behind the doors of the “en-suite” element, a complete change is taking place. The rear façade is removed and clad with glass to a full height of 11 meters. The floor levels are detached from the façade, creating a void that spans three levels and generating an optimal source of daylight.

Above: mezzanine floor plan

In the back of the house, the load-bearing wall between the corridor and the living room is replaced with a steel construction. Four new floors with a net height of 2.4 meters protrude from this construction. These floors remain openly linked to the existing floor levels. The interplay of voids, the split-levels and the glass façade, all create a spectacular drama between interior and exterior on the one hand, and between the existing and new floors on the other.

Above: first floor plan

The intervention in the back of the house can be interpreted as a three-dimensional, L-shaped element of five storeys, accessed by a new steel spiral staircase. The staircase brings a new dynamic between the different parts of the house and makes a separation between owners and guests possible. Vertically, the L-shaped element ends in a roof-terrace with jacuzzi and outer kitchen that lies far above the balconies of the lower floors.

Above second floor plan

This rigorous redesign project has reorganized the total accessible surface of the house towards an excess of floor space, generating more rooms and more daylight. To the owner, the residence promises an extraordinary living experience. To passers-by, it cannot be distinguished from any other house on the van Merlenstraat.

Above: roof plan

Project: house of Joyce & Jeroen
Location: The Hague, the Netherlands
Client: Joyce & Jeroen
Project type: residence renovation
Area: 225 m² building
Cost: € 245.000 including VAT

Above: 3D sectional diagram

Above: 3D concept diagram

The post Joyce & Jeroen House renovation
by Personal Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch studio Maxwan has renovated a thatched house in the seaside town of Noordwijk in the Netherlands and added concrete and glass protrusions to the front and back (+ slideshow).

Named House N, the residence dates back to the 1930s and had become run down over the years, so Maxwan was brought in to repair the existing structure and create more room on the ground floor.

The architects added two extensions to the house. The first is a precast concrete block that stretches the kitchen out beyond the facade, while the second is a glazed box at the rear that extends the living room into the garden.

“We wanted the extension of the kitchen to read as one monolithic object, almost like a sculpture or a piece of street furniture,” Maxwan’s Jason Hilgefort told Dezeen.

Strips of glazing across the roof of each extension create a visible separation between the old and new structures.

To create a new route up to the second-floor attic, the architects installed a spiral staircase with a custom-designed filigree balustrade.

“This historic lace-like pattern traditionally would have to be repeated to be formed, but this was fabricated with a metal laser cutter,” explained Hilgefort. “Therefore, the pattern could do things traditionally not possible, which is why we chose to warp it in places.”

“An additional feature of the lace pattern is that it is structural. This is why the pattern is more dense at the tread level, but has a more open transparency along the handrail.”

Bedrooms, bathrooms and the basement in the house are also renovated, plus the thatched roof is restored.

Other residential extensions completed in the last year include a barrel-vaulted addition to an English farmhouse and a dark brick extension to a red brick house in France. See more house extensions on Dezeen.

Photography is by Filip Dujardin.

Here’s a project description from Maxwan:

House N
Extension to a seaside villa
Noordwijk, 2012

Built in 1938, this Noordwijk seaside villa was originally the holiday home of a concrete factory owner. Battered and blustered by the salty sea weather over the decades, the house was in need of renovation.

Besides roof replacement and basement repairs, the bedrooms, bathrooms and windows were outdated and some spaces had grown too small for the clients’ requirements. Maxwan’s additions bring new distinctive features to the house, while respecting its original character.

Extending into the back garden with floor-to-ceiling glass on three sides is the new living room, which maximizes light and views from among the treetops towards the garden and further out to the sea.

In the opposite direction stretches the new kitchen, incorporated in a single precast concrete block. Its color contrasts to the existing house while harmonizing with the surroundings.

Both extensions of the new kitchen and living room are clearly separated from the existing structure with glass slits, through which the sky dramatically bursts.

The bespoke spiral staircase connecting the uppermost levels elegantly uses the balustrade to support the treads, with the laser-cut pattern blending from closed to open for structural efficiency and recalling the breaking waves. The attic is given a new lease of life by new multi-functional wall furniture and large windows.

In addition to these major components, the entire house is renewed in a manner complementary to the original house.

Above: concept diagram – click for larger image

Client: private
Country: Netherlands
City: Noordwijk
Scale: S
Team leader: Rene Sangers
Partner in charge: Hiroki Matsuura
Team: Anna Borzyszkowska, Larraine Henning, Jason Hilgefort, Claudia Strahl
Collaborators: F. Wiggers – Varsseveld (structural engineer)

Above: site plan – click for larger image

Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image

Above: first floor plan – click for larger image

Above: second floor plan – click for larger image

Above: cross section – click for larger image

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Maxwan appeared first on Dezeen.