Dutch studio WillemsenU has accomplished a home that’s partially buried underground to mix in with its rural environment in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
Appropriately referred to as The Home Beneath the Floor, the house is designed by WillemsenU to “improve the wonder” of its web site and act as a retreat for the couple who personal it.
Its design additionally affords privateness to its occupants, with the sleeping areas lowered six metres into the bottom and the protruding residing areas blanketed with a hill lined in wildflowers.
“The encompassing bocage panorama with its small peak variations was an enormous inspiration,” challenge architect Marrit Winkeler informed Dezeen.
“The home is designed as a part of this panorama, being a part of a hill,” added Winkeler. “It’s taking part in with visibility, alternately shielding and opening the view of the character reserve, creating privateness and shelter from the weather.”
Positioned in a meadow on the sting of a protected nature reserve, The Home Beneath the Floor matches throughout the parameters of a former goat shed.
The a part of the home that’s seen above floor is outlined by its arched form, which is designed to restrict the constructing’s peak and merge with the panorama.
Its construction is constructed from concrete forged in situ, whereas the facades which can be left uncovered are clad in vertical timber boards.
“The usage of wooden is impressed by the vernacular supplies used for sheds and barns on this space, and is used internally and externally,” Winkeler defined.
“By utilizing completely different patterns of wood slats within the facade, [the design] very subtly references the outdated goat shed that was once on the plot.”
On approaching the home from the sector’s edge, a path bordered by wildflowers results in a Corten steel-clad hall that cuts into the hillside.
Right here, a big pivot door opens into an expansive eating room and kitchen that gives beneficiant views over the valley past. The arch of the curved roof directs the attention to a void that goes right down to the basement.
The Home Beneath the Floor is organized round this central void, which homes a glass platform elevate. This brings gentle to the rooms beneath the bottom whereas guaranteeing the house is wheelchair-friendly sooner or later.
“The curved roof opens up above the steps and the elevate, in order that the sunshine penetrates deep into the house to supply beautiful sky views framed by the hill’s vegetation,” stated Winkeler.
The underground degree has a lounge that opens onto a terrace bordered by wildflowers, whereas the ground beneath accommodates the primary bed room.
Internally, the concrete construction varieties clean partitions, flooring and ceilings. Mild and translucent supplies are used to permit daylight to penetrate the bottom flooring.
WillemsenU’s partial placement of the house underground helps it to attain a excessive power efficiency, with warmth extracted from the earth by a warmth pump to heat inner areas.
Burying the home additionally will increase its thermal mass and creates a constant inner setting that’s cool in the summertime and heat within the winter.
WillemsenU is a Dutch structure studio based by Frank Willems in 1989. The Home Beneath the Floor has been longlisted within the rural home class of this 12 months’s Dezeen Awards.
Elsewhere within the Netherlands, Francois Verhoeven Architects lately used interlocking blocks completed with contrasting timber and plaster for Villa K340 and Chris Collaris Architects created a house shaped of lime-washed bricks topped with an outsized roof.
The pictures is by Rob van Esch and Stijn Poelstra.
