Rotterdam - Kubuswoningen (cube house).
Sent by Marianne from South Holland
Cube houses (Dutch: kubuswoningen) are a set of innovative houses built in Helmond and Rotterdam in the Netherlands, designed by architect Piet Blom. They are based on the concept of "living as an urban roof": high density housing with sufficient space on the ground level; its main purpose being to optimize the space inside. Blom combatted the ideas of conventional residential architecture by tilting the cube shape on its corner and rested it upon a hexagon-shaped pylon. Blom's main goal was to create an urban area that felt like a village. The cube houses around the world are meant to optimize the space as a house and to efficiently distribute the rooms inside.
In 1972, Piet Blom was assigned to fill an empty site in the city center of Helmond with a meeting center. Blom proposed a plan that mixed cultural facilities with houses and concluded that the cube houses should surround Theater 't Speelhuis (English: the playhouse), creating an interesting architectural whole. After the underground parking garage was taken out of the plans, the plan was reduced to 60 houses. The city council was not satisfied so Minister Hans Gruijters subsidized the building of 3 test houses in the Wilhelminalaan in 1974. The project also received the national status of 'Experimental Housing', which helped to realize Theater 't Speelhuis: a forecourt surrounded by 18 cube houses at the Piet Blomplein in 1977. The theatre burned down on December 29, 2011 which also damaged two adjacent cube houses.. The damaged houses were later restored in 2013 and 2014 (read more).
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