Cube houses in Rotterdam

Cube houses in Rotterdam are a set of innovative houses built in Rotterdam (and before in Helmond) in The Netherlands, designed by architect Piet Blom and based on the concept of "living as an urban roof": high density housing with sufficient space on the ground level. Blom tilted the cube of a conventional house 45 degrees, and rested it upon a hexagon-shaped pylon. His design represents a village within a city, where each house represents a tree, and all the houses together, a forest.

The houses in Rotterdam are located on Overblaak Street, and beside the Blaak Subway Station. There are 38 small cubes and two so called 'super-cubes', all attached to each other.

As residents are disturbed so often by curious passers-by, one owner decided to open a "show cube", which is furnished as a normal house, and is making a living out of offering tours to visitors.

The houses contain three floors:

  • ground floor entrance
  • first floor with living room and open kitchen
  • second floor with two bedrooms and bathroom
  • top floor which is sometimes used as a small garden

The walls and windows are angled at 54.7 degrees. The total area of the apartment is around 100 square meters, but around a quarter of the space is unusable because of the walls that are under the angled ceilings.

In 2009, the larger cubes were converted by Personal Architecture into a hostel run by Dutch hostel chain Stayokay.

Source of description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_house by wikipedia

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Architect definition of architect Piet Blom
Category definition of category building
eccentric
hotel
Material definition of material
concrete
wood
Price definition of price
Geographical coordinates 51.9202605, 4.4904732
Address Rotterdam, Overblaak 70
Construction dates 1977 - 1980
Area 0.01
More information official website

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