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HOUSING GEWILD WONEN
DIVERSE ARCHITECTEN, 1999-2001, Eilandenbuurt, Almere-Buiten
Woningbouw Gewild Wonen / Housing Gewild Wonen ( Diverse architecten )
Housing Marlies Rohmer  © 2004 Rook & Nagelkerke
In 1997, roughly 20 years after famously dismissing what he called the ‘new frumpishness’ then informing Dutch architecture, Carel Weeber was back at the barricades in Architectureland. This time the then chairman of the BNA (the Dutch equivalent of the RIBA) was toting ‘Het Wilde Wonen’, (literally ‘wild dwelling’), a weapon intended to free the consumer from the ‘state architecture’ imposed on homebuyers by architects, local councils and housing corporations and the aesthetic terrorism of Welstand, the government commission overseeing the ‘visual decency’ of buildings in the Netherlands. A pilot scheme of 600 dwellings by 15 architects was built in Almere Buiten, the most suburban of Almere’s nuclei, as part of Bouw-RAI 2001, with the somewhat modified slogan ‘Gewild Wonen’ (gewild means favoured or sought-after). Weeber himself realized a row of American-looking freestanding houses. Homebuyers could choose an external finish, colour, roof type and extension (balcony, conservatory and so on). Marlies Rohmer’s mobile-home units have a fixed slate-clad core and flexible metal-clad living quarters. MADE’s so-called growth homes include additional segments that can be added to back or front. Fons Verheijen gets the closest to the Wilde Wonen concept with his ‘houseboat’ units. Occupants get a three-storey ‘starter tower’ from which to further flesh out the 18 x 5 metre concrete shell themselves.
Projects: M.Chr. Rohmer (Samoastraat, Tahitistraat), Verheijen/Verkoren/Knappers/De Haan (Arubapier), L.L. Weeber, H. Heerema, MADE (Jamaicastraat), C.J.M. Weeber (Isla Margeritastraat 1-13), J.D. Peereboom Voller, de Architekten Cie. (Woongebouw Panoramique), FARO (Antillenweg).