It is a private villa that standing at a height of 4 meters with an introverted brick box shape. The family’s house plot of Villa van Diepen for René van Zuuk Architects is the most challenging out of all the locations in the Filmwijk-Zuid area. With a very small budget, this villa can provide a living volume with a torsion roof and also a surface supported by six wooden portals.
Design
This villa doesn’t have the privacy of a closed street side, doesn’t lie close to the waterfront, and it is situated on a roundabout. Urban planning requirements also dictate that the garden should face to the east. That’s why this villa is designed with a stronghold in mind, especially to give the residents good privacy and protect them from the shining and rotating car headlights.
This villa is an introverted brick box with openings that resemble ”loopholes” with a living room on the first floor for the family. The roof seems like it’s floating with the addition of 360-degree windows. The bedrooms and bathroom can be found on the ground floor.
With a small budget, it is still possible to provide a living room for its residents with a torsion roof. The house surface is supported by six wooden portals while the portals’ girders are wooden beams and clamped between the wooden frames. These frames hold the glass and by fixing the ends of the beams with tension cables on the first floor, the portals can absorb the horizontal wind load.
The top of the glass strip below needs to be cut at an angle because of the torsion in the roof. An external, concrete staircase leads outside in the corner and the stair balustrade transforms into a garden wall. This villa has a robust, sturdy design that won the architecture prize of Almere in 1999.
Villa van Diepen Gallery
Photography: René van Zuuk Architects