Benthem Crouwel Architects designs holiday home on Texel
Rubber ‘schapenboet’ with fishing nets
On the Dutch Wadden island Texel a rubber holiday home enveloped in fishing nets has been taken in use. The house is shaped like a ‘schapenboet’, a sort of storage shed. The house is built with a wooden frame construction. Roof and facades have been sprayed with rubber and are covered with coloured fishing nets. The nets are applied in two layers – red, green and blue nets are covered with black nets and divided into sections. These sections show the cross section of the building. Benthem Crouwel Architects designed the house for a private client in the style of the Wadden island.
‘Schapenboeten’
Texel is the largest of the Dutch Wadden islands. It is an island of sheep and fishermen. Iconic features in the Texel landscape are the so called ‘schapenboeten’: little sheds that are not used for sheep, but for storage of hay and tools. They stand alone in the vast open meadows, on land far away from the farm. The sheds have a gabled roof with a bevelled top section and face southwest, which is the most common wind direction. The entrance door is situated on the straight and sheltered northeast side of the building.
The design of the holiday home has been inspired by these characteristic sheds, but contrary to the sheds, the house had many windows in both the facades and the roof. The windows provide an excellent view of the surroundings: from the kitchen/living area one gets a panoramic view of the island, from the first floor the dunes and the sea are visible, and from the bedroom one glimpses the endless sky.
Inside and outside merge
The house has a simple lay-out. The kitchen/living area, bedroom, bathroom and toilet are situated on the ground floor, additional places to sleep, work areas and storage rooms are situated on the first floor and in the basement. The interior is also simple: functional and light, not distracting from the landscape outside. The large glass façade of the kitchen/living area strengthens the relationship with the garden. Nature becomes an important feature of the house. On this side of the building, inside and outside seem to merge.
Lead Architect Mels Crouwel Project Team Mels Crouwel, Pia Hanhijärvi, Jos Wesselman, Volker Krenz
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