INTRODUCTION Architects Bjarne Mastenbroek MVRDV Location Wilhelminapark Utrecht

INTRODUCTION Architects: Bjarne Mastenbroek, MVRDV Location : Wilhelminapark, Utrecht, the Netherlands Year: 1995/97 Client: Confidential Program:

ABOUT THE The Double House is a house located in Utrecht, ARCHITECT Netherlands. It was designed by Bjarne Mastenbroek and Winy Maas of MVRDV in 1997. MVRDV was founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The practice engages globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues. A highly collaborative, research-based design method involves clients, stakeholders and experts from a wide range of fields from early on in the creative process. The results are exemplary, outspoken projects, which enable our cities and landscapes to develop towards a

PROCESS OF THE HOUSE

PROCESS OF THE The Double House is a house located in Utrecht, HOUSE Netherlands. It was designed by Bjarne Mastenbroek and Winy Maas of MVRDV in 1997. The Koek Family bought a large piece of land that overlooked a beautiful park, but soon found out that they could not afford to build a house to satisfy such a great piece of land. They realized that with the joined income of two families, the house could reach its true potential, so the Koek family joined with the Wesseling family. Bjarne Mastenbroek was given the task of fitting the two families into one structure, and divide views close to equally and the original buyers would get 2/3 of the space and the new buyers would get 1/3 of the space. The project

PROCESS OF THE HOUSE The owner ship of the house had to be split between the two houses, but the families couldn’t decide who would get better views, better entrances and so on. So Bjarne Mastenbroek and Winy Maas developed an interlocking system for the architecture to make it feel like they had a lot of space. The architecture pushes and pulls at each floor, taking space away at one point, then regaining it the next floor. The parting wall slithers through the two spaces in a zig zag pattern. A straight wall could not be used because it would create very narrow spaces, that would not give the views that the beautiful park could provide.

PROCESS OF THE HOUSE The two families spaces end up being very linear. with one staircase each. The placement of the staircase assures that all living spaces can be reached with the shortest distance from the central plane. This central plane makes it easy to communicate from one living space to the next. Also this linear movement, along with a long, but slender house let a lot of daylight flood the house. making the house slim allowed for a larger garden in the back to be shared by the two families.

PROCESS OF THE The architecture is located in between nearby HOUSE Wilhelminapark and a river. Both sides of the house had to be covered in glass to reach the sites potential. The park has a lake and a lot of green, and is a large part of the community. Though Utrecht is a large city, it still has many parks. It hosted a National Concert in 2011 on June 12, that included eighteen members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, harpist Lavinia Meijer, and soul singer Giovanca. The city’s population was reduced significantly in the 1870 s and people started to live closer together. That is why in the city the people live so close together, and ultimately why the double house is designed the way it was.

PROBLEM SOLVING Theoretically the parting wall was a great idea, though caused major building problems. The two architects worked through this problem though, even without any interior columns. They used steel trusses and props, that they hid in the internal and exterior walls. Even with the structural problems they managed to put huge glass windows for the views. The outside paneling of just plywood has been debated on the reason that material was chosen. Some say that it was used to emphasize the abstract box of the building, and to reject any tectonic expression of structure or construction, and then some say that it was simply because of financial issues.

INSPIRATION

SPATIAL QUALITIES As in other projects, MVRDV decided to limit the number of variables involved in the design in order to simplify a potentially complicated situation. After producing numerous plans for the layout it was decided to reduce the depth of the house in order to free up the plot and allocate more space to the yard. The starategy gave the design greater physical presence and spatial potential as well as much better views of neighbouring park.

SPATIAL QUALITIES The house became a tall, slender unit. Then, sections replaced stories as the battlefield on which the two houses work spatially defined and fitted together. The trajectory of the party wall is like a negotiable boundary there is designed as a surface of uniform thickness. As it rises it becomes a vertical Wall to which the noncomplemantary layout of both parts of the house are appended.