designing, building, living
building your own house
In our eyes houses for private clients are wonderful opportunities to work on the very essence of architecture. Since the establishment of our office, we regularly had the opportunity to work on various assignments for private clients. We built recreation houses, a 20-person cottage, family homes, an artist studio, experimental houses or a stately villa in a suburb. Our houses are located in cities, villages and beautiful landscapes, they are temporary and permanent, large or (very) small, new or old and differ as much as their residents.
| Parasite Las Palmas: | experimentele dwelling 2001 |
| House No 19: | mobile studio for artists 2003 |
| house near Lyon: | suburban prefab- house for young family 2005 |
| houses on IJburg: | urban family homes for extremely low budgets 2006 |
| Villa Nesselande: | suburban patiovilla in brick 2010 |
| house Heiloo: | family home for large family |
| house Uitdam: | village home in preserved context next to the IJsselmeer 2013 |
| house Goeree: | large holiday home at the coast 2013 |
| houses Oosterwold Almere: | rural barn dwellings Oosterwold 2017 |
| house Leonidasterrein: | sustainable home in Rotterdam 2017 |
The conceptual ideas behind the project for houses we made so far are beautifully described in the article 'decorum and irregularities' by Elsbeth Ronner. The articles by Mechthild Stuhlmacher describe the process in dutch: 'huiselijkheid ontwerp' and 'wonen' . These texts you find in full length on this site.
Besides our work for our clienst for some years now, building our own home is giving us a wealth of experience how things should be done or better not.
We listen with genuine interest to the wishes of our clients and translate wild and sweet dreams into usable, robust, spacious places to feel at home. We are very happy to work with wood for construction and finishing but are equally interested in many other, preferably natural materials.
living room in Egelshoek house
south elevation Egelshoek house
We know what it means to make a lot out of limited means and take our responsibility towards the (often limited) budgets of our clients very seriously. We are usually very enthusiastic about new commissions but at the same time we are experienced and realistic enough to avoid promisses we can’t fulfill. We therefore will tell you frankly if we think that desires and means are too different to start the process.
overlook between living room and staircase in house in Nesselande
The following reference text and the various project descriptions on this site give you a good idea of our expertise, methods and ambitions. If you have become curious and want to discuss your building plans with us, we are happy to make time for it. An initial conversation with us is always completely free of obligation. Call or mail us for an appointment.
Goeree house dining room
detail of elevation in Goeree house
the clients, after living in the house for about three months:
‘In the car back after our very first meeting with the architect discussing his first sketches we looked at each other, rather surprised. ‘There is not much to complain about, is there?’. Rien Korteknie had managed to answer all questions we had posed to him with our brief. From that moment on we actually only discussed details, and that we did a lot and very often.
We are impressed by the serious, unselfish attention we got from the beginning up to the very end of the process, whether we discussed design-issues or boring technical calculations. The meetings we had were always calm and adequate. Whenever necessary we organised meetings on site, and in between we made hundreds of phone-calls and sent each other just as many emails.
The result fits us like a glove. We asked for a modern but unpretentious timber house, spacious, light and with high, airy rooms. The house is cheerful and comforting; it fits to the village and the surrounding and offers optimal views to the outside and long vistas in the interior. Monumental without being over the top. Full of invisible sustainable installations and very well insulated. With cleverly accommodated high ceilings inside despite the obligatory height of 2,5 m for the gutter outside. We got exactly what we had in mind, and a lot more’
SD + MM, june 2013
