Casa Duplo
Type: Prototype of a dwelling Location: IJburg, Amsterdam Client: ING Real Estate Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers with David Spierings, Remco van Gijzen Floor area / size: 220 m2 Cost: Euro 370.000,00 Competition: May 2006 Status: Preliminary design
The Beauty of Simplicity
In short, building is nothing but connecting and stacking modular units: an upgraded kind of Lego. And the simpler the connecting and stacking is, the more efficiently one can build.
So... we based Casa Duplo on the Lego brick. The design consists of a number of connected and stacked simple volumes. The efficient way of connecting and stacking results in terraces, loggias and a large overhang that can serve as a carport, with the interior-exterior relation playing an important part.
The need to secure adequate privacy is at odds with the wish to bring as much of the exterior into the interior as possible. Casa Duplo’s window openings each face a different part of the environment, thus directing the eye to the space between the surrounding buildings. The façade, which consists of horizontal wooden slats, lets the daylight in and allows a view but obscures the view into the house.
