Cube houses – Het Blaakse Bos

Piet Blom

Rotterdam, Overblaak

1982 – 1984

Cube houses

Rotterdam is one of my favorite cities. The cube houses are one of the architectural gems that can be found in this city. They received the title “Het Blaakse Bos” because the houses are designed as abstract trees. The base or trunk consists of concrete with a brick parament, which contains the entrance and the stairs. The cube itself is made of wood and consists of three floors: kitchen and living room, bedroom, hobby room with conservatory.

Piet Blom

The cube houses in Rotterdam are not the first. Piet Blom, the architect had already built 18 cube houses in Helmond. He comes up with the idea of one of the residents who called at a meeting that we should live in the trees again. He came up with names for the levels in the cube: street house (living room and dining room), celestial house (bedroom) and loft (hobby room and conservatory).

Rotterdam

In 1977 Blom got into a conversation with the man of Spatial Planning of Rotterdam. Both have the same vision for the new architecture in the city: no more gray high-rise buildings. Blom was commissioned for a new construction on the area around the Oudehaven. The architect designed a kind of bridge of cube houses over a busy traffic road.

Renovation

The cubes were renovated in 2015. Due to their shape, the houses were little maintained. A special scaffolding construction was designed, among other things, the road underneath had to be taken into account. The original yellow color was also reduced. The gabled roofs were cleaned and the glass replaced.

Visit

You can visit one of the cube houses: the Kijk-Kubus. Nice to do.

If you want to sleep in a cube house: Stay Okay Rotterdam.