Could the house also be the place of the “event”, ever-changing in the dematerialization of its electronic contents? The invitation—to design a three bedroom, low-cost villa adjacent to a canal on one of eight lots by eight different architects that are part of a master site plan created by OMA—in The Hague became an opportunity to raise new questions about the home and related assumptions about an impenetrable private domain. It also became a challenge to explore some conditions of twenty-first-century living spaces. more

The glass enclosure (twelve by four by seven meters) of living and work space is both transparent and translucent (printed glass). It leans away from the rest of the house, revealing an in-between, interstitial connection. The heaviest part, a concrete frame containing bedrooms, is suspended over the remaining portion of the domestic space (kitchen and storage). The bathroom crankshaft locks the other elements in place.

Conceived as a series of strips placed in between a canal, a major traffic road, housing, and a park, the house expands these urban events while providing a momentary pause in the digital transfer of information. The borders of the living room and work space, devoid of ornamental camouflage, expand beyond the property line just as they are undermined by the electronic devices of everyday use (TV, fax, etc.) that they contain. back

Credits

SCHEDULE
Built 1992
CLIENT
N/A
TEAM
Lead Designer: Bernard Tschumi. Key Personnel: Tom Kowalski, François Gillet, Therese Erngaard, Robert Young, Mark Haukos. Consultant: Hugh Dutton (RFR)

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Program: Housing