Casanova+Hernandez architects | A012_Canal Houses

On ground floor each house has a sequence of open spaces: front garden, parking space under the dwelling and garden at the back in order to provide visual permeability from the public space. Several massive small plinths made of brick support the cantilevered glazed volume on top and provide access to the houses.

Meanwhile, the exterior of the block dialogues with the large blocks of the surroundings designed by Berlage by means of certain neutrality and repetition.

Inside the block, a wide variety of types of dwellings is provided: patio house, atelier house, diagonal house, living and working.

Each type has specific characteristics for specific target groups: families that need maximum number of rooms, freelancers that need working and living space, couples that need luxurious double or triple high spaces.

Some types are characterized by open-air spaces like terraces with south orientation or patios on the top level, and others by double high spaces, which provide visual and physical connections between different parts of the house.

On the corners of the urban intervention, the living-and-working types placed there present the whole surface on ground floor built to create urban continuity but also to provide extra working space connected with the street. Large terraces linked to the living space are placed on top of the working areas.

The front facade facing the water will be made in glass in order to strength the visual relation between the living space and the canal. It will show the different ways of living behind the glass thanks to the random position of the different typologies.

The back facade with south orientation facing the gardens will be a large collage of glass and aluminium plates that will show the great variety of spaces behind. This variety will be increased by the openings of terraces related with some types.