Trappenhuis

Trappenhuis is the home and high-rise interior we designed for our dear friends.

The project starts from their desire to create an interior world that has a distinct character and contrasts with the pragmatic context of a new construction project. The house has as many rooms as is possible in a relatively 'standard' house of this size, but it is precisely in the in-between spaces that we sought what else a house can be.

A stairwell protrudes as a detached and organising object through the full height of a shell house with a clear height of over 13 metres. The shaft forms a patio-like space and is finished at the top with a skylight. The stairwell brings daylight deep into the house and divides the floors into a front and back room. Through it, stairs cross from floor to floor. View relationships between the different rooms are created through large windows.

The staircase transforms the conventional idea of a family home into a hybrid form of cohabitation, living together and working together.

The project attempts to make a highly personal house in a rather generic new-build context. The ambition was to design an ultimate 'in-between space' - an ambiguous quality for which there is less and less room in new-build homes. It is not the living room or dining room that is the most important room in the house - but rather the 13-metre-plus void. The diagonally placed stairs further swap the hierarchy of rooms and sometimes feel as if upstairs is downstairs and vice versa. The stairwell reveals itself as an inside-out space that interweaves the different types of use and in which a new, hybrid home can emerge. 

Type: Townhouse
Location: Rotterdam
Surface : 240m2
For: Private client
When: Built
Team: Tomas Dirrix, Stefan Hutterer, Julia Strömland