[ René van Zuuk Architekten ] Project X

Architect: René van Zuuk Architekten
Location: Almere, the Netherlands
Client: René van Zuuk & Marjo Körner
Program: Villa
Structural Ingeneering: Van de Laar, Eindhoven / NL
Project Year: 2008
Site Area: 454 sqm
Constructed Area: 215 sqm
Photographs: Christian Richters & René van Zuuk

Behind the somewhat mysterious name ‘Project X’, hides the design of René van Zuuk and his family’s own residence. The villa with a small office space is located right next to the architect’s former residence Psyche in Almere’s The Fantasy district, an area for experimental housing. Because the old house serves as his architect’s office since 2004, it occurred that the two plots could be consolidated into one garden. The garden area is optimized by leaving only the width of a parking space between Project X and its neighbouring house.

From an urban point of view three major considerations were important: the box-shaped appearance of all the Fantasy dwellings, the fixed building line and the pattern of alternating building heights. Placing the lower storey half below ground level resulted in House X being lower than the adjacent dwellings, thus fitting in the height sequence. The distance from the living room to the water is reduced to half a metre, creating a sense of living along the waterfront despite the rather modest size of the canal. This feeling is being intensified by the large expanse of glass in the living room offering a panoramic view on the canal.

Only the exceptionally high entrance door infringes the closed appearance of the box-shaped upper storey enclosing the bedrooms. Its façade is cladded with large thin cement tiles with a continuing branch-like pattern of grooves softening and reviving the rigid box shape. The scanting daylight entering the bedrooms comes through rooflights and a few subtle ‘eyelets’ in the façade. Because of the small dimensions of the façade openings the main volume remains intact. The upper volume is separated from the lower storey by means of a glass strip. On the garden side the strip is storey high.