Vertical
Loft by Shift architecture urbanism
extreme makeover of a pre-war city dwelling in the centre of Rotterdam
This so called do-it-yourself dwelling in the centre of Rotterdam is
part of a bold experiment initiated by the municipality to revitalize
dilapidated urban areas. Run-down pre-war dwellings are renovated on the
outside and brought back to their monumental appearance, while the interiors
are stripped bare. The empty shell dwellings are primarily bought by
enthusiastic young people who transform them according to their specific needs,
desires and budgets. Real estate developers have picked up the initiative and a
new demand driven market of urban housing has been generated in recent years.
The result is a growing number of contemporary custom-made dream houses within
the uniform old fabric of the traditional nineteenth and early twentieth
century city.
Our dream was to create a vertical loft: a house without walls where all
three floors are stitched together into one continuous space. The interior of
the new house is organized by one oversized closet that connects all floors. It
functions as a storage device for the whole house. This piece of XXL-furniture,
measuring 10 meters in length and 9 meters in height, replaces the load bearing
middle wall of the original house. Its modular system integrates kitchen
appliances, bookshelves, wardrobe, and a walk in closet. The introduction of a
central void reinforces the presence of the closet. The void enables diagonal
views through the house in which the closet is experienced in its full height.
It also makes daylight penetrate far into the 14 meter deep house. Two steel
stairs in the void make the bookshelves accessible and create a vertical
circulation along and through the closet.
The extreme makeover of the house is combined with a
selective preservation of elements of the old casco. Industrial materials such
as the phenol coated multiplex of the closet and the polyurethane flooring are
balanced by the longitudinal brick wall that is left bare, the stained glass
and the original doors that are restored and re-used. The roughness of the
wall, full with traces of the past, tells stories about the continuous
makeovers that the house has undergone in the last hundred years.
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