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CUBE HOUSES, BLAAK HEIGHTS

P. BLOM, 1978-1984, Blaak/Spaansekade, Rotterdam

ARCHITECT(URAL OFFICE):
Piet Blom

BUILDING TYPE:
Housing
Urban plans

STATE:
Visits: www.kubuswoning.nl


RELATED BUILDINGS:
Cultural Centre; Cube Houses
Cube Houses Helmond

The Amsterdam architect Piet Blom spent years working on his concept of an 'urban roof' of housing with the https://www.architectureguide.nl/project/item/prj_id/567" class="inline_link">Kasbah in Hengelo (1973) and https://www.architectureguide.nl/project/item/prj_id/817" class="inline_link">cube houses in Helmond (1976). The third manifestation of this theory, Blaakse Bos (Blaak Woods), is part of a plan for Oudehaven. Blom felt that this former harbour area's only chance of success would be if it were to be linked to the market and the central library by a Ponte Vecchio-type pedestrian bridge across Blaak and its traffic. Only 38 of the projected 74 cube houses were built and the steep climb across Blaak was not a great success. A residential tower, the Pencil, was built to compensate. The development on Oudehaven itself combines 250 social housing units with cafés and restaurants along the dockside walkway. The whole has a high structural density and a 'Mediterranean' vernacular and being ideally oriented to the sun has burgeoned into a popular leisure zone for tourists and students. Cube houses, also known as pole or tree dwellings, consist of a tilted timber cube with one point anchored in a hexagonal concrete core. This 'trunk' contains the entrance and the stair. The cube itself has three levels: a 'street-house' of kitchen and living room, a 'sky-house' of bedrooms and a 'tree-top-house' at the apex. The only vertical walls are in the core; all the others are at an angle.