Rietveld Architects New York

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The space between...

In two projects in The Hague and Loosduinen in the early 20th century, we designed two distinct types of row houses. Because the living room and kitchen footprint is bigger than the two bedroom floors, one type is developed in the depth and the other one developed in the width. The deeper ones form a continuous facade and are narrower. The wider one, with the same ground floor area and upper floors is much more interesting, because it creates an urban space above the ground floor, and with that a transparency from the public street to the private gardens and trees on the other side. As an added bonus there is a large window in the facade at the interior stair hall. This brings in amazing daylight and view from a facade that is usually closed, with at best a skylight in the roof. This Space Between is the essence of the whole design….