Kubuswoningen (Cube houses)

The cube houses were built in Rotterdam and Helmond in the Netherlands in 1977 and in the early 1980s, They were designed by architect Piet Blom, representative of the structuralism movement.

Piet Blom:

Piet Blom was born on February, 8th in 1934 in Amsterdam and he died on June 8th in 1999 in Denmark. After having completed a carpenter and draughtsman formation he studied at the Amsterdam Academy of Building-Arts. There he was a student of Aldo van Eyck.
Piet achieved in 1962 the Dutch Pris de Rome and his best known work were his "Kubuswoningen". There is also a museum dedicated to Piet Blom's work in Hengelo.

History of building:

In 1972 Piet Blom received an assigent of the city of Helmond to design a meeting center. He explored the surroundings of Helmond for inspiration and the trees he saw reminded him of the pillars of the Alhambra. So he built three test houses with an hexagon pillar on which he placed the cube of a conventional house wich he tilted 45 degrees. Each house represents a tree and all the houses together a forest.
In 1977 the theatre "Speelhuis" was completed. the building was composed of 37 cubes, the largest cube being the theatre, offering place to 400 to 700 people. This theatre was destroyed by a great fire on December 29th in 2011.
Later he built 38 small cubes and two "super cubes" in Rotterdam, all attached to each other. There cubes form a bridge over Overblaak Street, a busy artery road.
The residents of these cubes were so often disturbed by tourists and passers-by that one owner decided to open a "show cube" which is furnished as a normal house and which is visited by over ten thousand people a year.

Structure and materials:

The houses contain three floors:

• Grounded floor entrance
• First floor with livingroom and open kitchen
• Second floor with two bedrooms and bathroom
• Top floor which is sometimes used as a small garden

All the walls and Windows are angled at 54.7 degrees and therefore some of the space can't be used because it is situated under angled ceilings. The total área of an apartment is 100 square meters.

Impressions:

We all think it must be fun to live in these cube houses. The structure is peculiar and surprising and the cubes are brightly coloured. Although they look a bit confusing, it is a bizarre spectacle. But it doesn't seem to be very practicle to have three floors and lost of stairs in your hous.

Our drawings:

The exterior by Paula Pantoja

The interior by Sara Pantoja












Project made by Sara Pantoja, Carmela Palacios, Paula Pantoja and Andrea Rodríguez.