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

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by GAAGA appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch architecture studio GAAGA designed an asymmetrical facade to make these two houses in Leiden look like only one.

The building stands on a tightly-packed plot in Nieuw Leyden, a former industrial area designated as an experimental housing zone.

MVRDV in Rotterdam have conceived a master plan for the area which allows people to develop their own homes, with the only fixed criterion being the building's maximum volume.

The architects made use of the limited space by designing the facade as a single entity, avoiding symmetry between the two halves. Only the two front doors side-by-side indicate that the building is divided into two homes.

Inside the houses, staircases are detached from the walls and positioned centrally to divide the space and screen off the kitchen.

The ground floor has a multi-purpose room and toilet as well as a parking space accessed from the rear.

On the first floor are the kitchen, dining area and living area, plus a patio at the back.

The second floor contains three bedrooms and a bathroom, and the top floor has outdoor terraces either side of a multi-purpose room.

Photographs are by Marcel van der Burg.

Here's more information from the architects:

Two-in-One House, Leiden

Situated in the urban planning area Nieuw Leyden, the project includes two separate houses combined into one single looking volume. Both houses, practically identical on the inside, are designed as one entity on the outside, only the two entrance doors reveal the presence of two homes.

The project is developed within an urban framework that, due to its underlying low-rise, high dense concept, challenges to a new way of living and to a new housing typology. The framework, which consists of rectangular plots divided in eighteen small, back to back parcels on top of a communal semi-sunken parking garage, calls for new spatial and formal solutions regarding the use of the available space, daylight, privacy, outside spaces, the relation between parking and house, the way of entering, flexibility and identity.

Both houses are organized vertically: a multifunctional room and storage room in the basement, the living area and a patio on the first floor and the more private functions like bedrooms and bathroom on the second floor. On the roof there is a small multifunctional room with a terrace at the front and back side. Despite of the relatively small plot the design of each house aims at an integration of spatial qualities – like the play of light, intriguing vistas and routing – and practical values in terms of usable and flexible space suitable for family life.

Click above for larger image

In achieving this, the unfamiliar positioning of the main staircase parallel to and detached from the bearing wall plays a pivotal role. At ground and second floor the stair borders a passage on one side and rooms on the other, leaving most of the space along the bearing wall for storage, installation and sanitary facilities. At the first floor, the freestanding stair subtly screens off the kitchen area and divides the open space into different functional areas. In this way the living area gets an open yet intimate character with intriguing vistas. Also, the staircase is an eye-catcher that acts as an integral part of the furniture.

Click above for larger image

In the context of Nieuw Leyden, where each house is different from its neighbour, making two identical looking houses next to each other would be an aberration. To conceal the fact that the project comprises two identical houses the facade is designed as one entity.

The design of the facade is based on a neutral grid, avoiding an evident hierarchy. Because all openings look – despite their differences in size and infill – similar, it is not immediately clear what is happening inside. From the outside one cannot discern a bedroom from a living room. In this way the facade acts like a mask, a 3-D layer that conceals the structure behind.

The facade consists of a white framework, in which rectangular openings are filled in with aluminum window frames and wooden panels. The wooden panels vary in position, some are placed close to the white stucco surface and some are placed deep into the facade. In combination with the wooden surfaces around the openings the idea of the facade as a 3-D layer is intensified. Furthermore, the variable wooden infill gives the projects its expressive and dynamic looks.

Architects: GAAGA
Team: Esther Stevelink and Arie Bergsma
Location: Leiden, The Netherlands
Client: Nieuw Leyden CV
Realisation: 2009 - 2012
Contractor: Verbeij Bouw, Boskoop.
Structural Engineering: Buro Broersma, Den Haag
Energy performance & building physics: GAAGA - Arie Bergsma

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by GAAGA appeared first on Dezeen.

This house for a pianist and a violinist in Leiden, the Netherlands, is the latest in a series by Dutch architects Pasel Kuenzel on the site of a former slaughterhouse.

Named V12K0709, the house occupies a rectangular plot and screens two courtyard gardens behind its slatted timber exterior.

Most of the ground floor spaces open out onto these gardens, including a music room where the occupants can practise their instruments.

Two more terraces are located on the first floor and overlook those below from opposite corners.

The house and its neighbours form part of a masterplan by Dutch architects MVRDV and you can see more completed projects in the area here.

See all our stories about Pasel Kuenzel Architects »
See all our stories about Dutch houses »

Photography is by Marcel van der Burg.

Here's some more text from the architects:

V12K0709
Piano House

This remarkable urban villa, designed by Dutch architects Ralf Pasel and Frederik Künzel, is located on the site of a former industrial area, in the heart of the Dutch city of Leiden.

The spatial idea of this urban residence is based on a 3 metre high, all-embracing wooden screen that surrounds the whole site enclosing as well the building volumes as the building voids of the patio and garden.

The composition of this wooden filter, made out of 'dancing' timber fins, refers directely to the musical oeuvre of the concert violist and the pianist living in the house.

Click above for larger image

It manifests a crescendo of multifaceted visual relationships and allows for an exceptional syncopical relation between public and private life; between inside and outside the house.

Click above for larger image

While the merging interior and exterior spaces on the groundfloor are taken up by the living and music areas, the upperfloor comprises various private rooms with individual roofterraces.

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

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Pasel Kuenzel Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Here's the next house in the series of eleven by Rotterdam studio Pasel Kuenzel Architects on the site of a former slaughterhouse in Leiden, Netherlands.

Named V12K0102, the house and its neighbours form part of an area masterplan by Dutch architects MVRDV.

The 30 metre-long building alternates between one and two storeys-high and is clad in a chequered pattern of timber and white render.

The house also features long narrow windows and a camouflaged front door.

A private courtyard splits the house into two halves, one occupied by the children and the other used by the parents.

This courtyard can be surveyed from a first floor deck, which also overlooks a second smaller courtyard on the opposite side of the building.

We've previously featured four houses from this series on Dezeen - see the projects here and see all our stories about Dutch houses here, including one with perforated fabric tacked onto its facades.

Photography is by Marcel van der Burg.

Here are a few additional words from Pasel Kuenzel Architects:

V12K0102 - 30 running meters of house!

On the site of a former slaughterhouse in the historical heart of the Dutch university city of Leiden, emerges one of the biggest urban developments of private dwellings in the Netherlands.

In their series of eleven, Rotterdam based architects pasel.künzel architects present yet another spectecular house giving a new interpretation of the classical Dutch housing typology.

With their V12K0102 residence pasel.kuenzel architects created a remarkable project on an almost triangular building plot, the remnant of an inner city housing block.

On a 30 metre long one-storey high base, two building volumes were placed on opposite side, one being the ‘children’s house’ and the other serving as the ‘house of the parents’.

The two parts facing each other allow for visible eye contact, but are furthermore physically separeted.

Collective spaces for living, dining and playing are situated on the ground floor, meandering around two intimate courtyards and establishing an immediate relation between ‘life inside and outside’ – an oasis in the city.

Towards the city, the introvert house reveals his inner life by only two gigantic glass panes that also permit the characteristic Dutch light to reach deep into the museum like spaces.

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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

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and Marc Koehler Architects appeared first on Dezeen.