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Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

A collection of vintage Aston Martins can be glimpsed through the fritted glass facade of this house in Maastricht, the Netherlands, by Dutch studio Wiel Arets Architects.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

Named V House, the three-storey residence is sandwiched between two historic buildings in a part of the city where new structures have to match the scale of their surroundings.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector
Photograph by Bas Princen

Wiel Arets Architects designed the building with an asymmetric glass facade so that the edge of the roof slopes between the eaves of its neighbours, creating an angular plane facing up towards the sky.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

The glazed wall is fritted at the base to maintain some privacy for residents, while thin curtains hang behind.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

In contrast, the rear facade is made up concrete frames infilled with windows. A large void opens the ground floor up to the elements, creating a space for storing around seven or eight vintage cars.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

"Due to the house's very narrow site, the intention was to increase the amount of natural daylight that enters it, at both its front and rear," project architect Alex Kunnen told Dezeen.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

"Without the void that has been cut into the maximum volume in the rear, the house would have been far too dark. And so the fully glazed front facade and the back void work in tandem," added the architect.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

Two separate staircases lead up from the parking level to the first floor above. The first is a "fast" stair that ascends to every floor, while the second is a "slow" route that climbs gently towards a living room at the back of the house.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

"It was always the intention to have two paths of circulation," said Kunnen, "foremost for safety reasons due to the house's large size, but also because the multiple paths of circulation create various cinematographic scenes throughout the house while they are being experienced."

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

A fully glazed living room is contained within a suspended structure, hanging from a pair of I-beams that span the site at the rear. A combined kitchen and dining room sit just beyond and features a 3.5-metre cantilevered dining table.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

The bedroom occupies the second floor, alongside an office that can be transformed into a guest suite by folding a bed down from the wall.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

Glass doors open out to one roof terrace at the rear, plus a staircase leads up to a second terrace at the very top of the building.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

Storage is built into the walls to minimise clutter, and heating and cooling systems are built into the floors.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

Residents use iPhones to remotely open and close the house's entrances, so there are no handles or keyholes anywhere around the exterior.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

Photography is by Jan Bitter, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here's a project description from Wiel Arets Architects:


V House

V House was constructed for a couple that collects vintage cars, and is stitched within the medieval tapestry of historic Maastricht. The city dictates all new structures remain within the envelope of pre-existing buildings, and so a cut was created in the house's front façade to generate a triangulated surface, which leads from one neighbour's sloped roof to the opposite neighbour's vertical bearing wall.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

As the house's site is long and narrow, voids were cut into the maximum permitted volume to ensure that natural light spills throughout the interior. The ground floor is both open to the exterior elements and sunken to the rear of the site, which makes possible the maximum two-story height allowance. A covered portion of this exterior space serves as an outdoor parking garage for the owners' collection of Aston Martins.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

As the house finds refuge between two historical buildings, it is a burst of modernity within this currently gentrifying neighborhood of Maastricht. The house is enormous, totaling 530 m2, and is entered through two oversized sliding glass doors that perforate its front façade. These doors serve as the house's main entry and open to either their left or right for entry by foot, and both simultaneously retract to allow the entry of automobiles.

Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector

Due to safety and privacy concerns, these glass entry doors have no handles or keyholes and are instead are remotely opened from any iPhone, from anywhere in the world. For further privacy the house's front façade was fritted with a gradient pattern of dots, which disperse in placement as the house rises towards the sky and focus at a distance to compose an image of curtains fluttering in the wind. Actual curtains align the interior of the front façade to afford additional privacy.

Ground floor plan of Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector
Ground floor plan - click for larger image

Circulation throughout the house occurs via two paths. A 'slow' stair leads from the ground floor to the expansive living room, which is connected to the partially raised kitchen and dining areas by a small ramp. A 'fast' stairwell traverses the entire height of the house and, together with the platform elevator, allows for direct vertical shortcuts to all levels of living.

First floor plan of Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector
First floor plan - click for larger image

Thus this house, with its multiple circulation interventions, such as its living room ramp and 'fast' and 'slow' paths, is organised not around the traditional notion of stacked floors and is instead organised around its circulatory section. At the apex of this 'fast' route is the entrance to an expansive roof terrace that's also the most public space of the house, as it offers panoramic views over the spired roofline of Maastricht.

Second floor plan of Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector
Second floor plan - click for larger image

The living room has been suspended from two I-beams that span two masonry bearing walls that surround the rear of the site. Steel tension rods measuring 5x10 cm extend from these I-beams into the almost fully glazed façade of the living room, which allows its volume to float above the Aston Martins below. For privacy reasons, this glazing was treated with a highly reflective coating that casts a hue of chartreuse or amber depending on the season and angle of the sun. Only when inhabiting the master bedroom is this hanging of the living room apparent, as the I-beams are visible from the master bedroom, which opens onto the living room's roof, which functions as a private terrace for the owners.

Third floor plan of Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector
Third floor plan - click for larger image

Heating and cooling is provided via a concrete core activation system concealed within the floors and ceilings of the house, while all storage is built into the circulatory areas in order to divide spaces and define rooms. These custom designed storage units also outfit the office space, where they conceal a bed that can be lowered to accommodate temporary visitors, such as the owners' now grown children. All storage areas recede in prominence due to their fluid integration, which allows the house's interior to remain flexible and open for ephemeral definition.

Section one of Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector
Section one - click for larger image

The one-piece custom designed kitchen was constructed in stainless steel, and the dining table, which is connected to it, cantilevers 3.5 m toward the front façade. The custom furnishings and storage spaces, together with the in-situ concrete and multiple roof terraces, make the V' house an expression of free space in a regulated heritage context.

Section two of Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector
Section two - click for larger image

Program: Housing
Size: 530 m2
Date of design: 2006-2010
Date of completion: 2013
Project team: Wiel Arets, Alex Kunnen, Joris Lens, Breg Horemans, Felix Thies, Daniel Meier
Collaborators: Francois Steul
Client: Private
Consultants: Palte BV, Wetering Raadgevende Ingenieurs BV, Permasteelisa BV

Elevation of Wiel Arets completes a glazed house for a vintage car collector
Front elevation - click for larger image