In the decades after World War II, many countries faced the challenge of rebuilding housing and infrastructure, and had to deal with the fast-reaching baby boom. The Dutch government has become more creative than most people and has spent money on experimental housing projects since the late 1960s. Wanting to happen in the next innovative form of housing, it ultimately ended up funding designs that are not far from established patterns in most cases. Still, there were real outliers. The most daring suggestions came from artists and sculptors Dry the Kreijkamp: Build an entire neighborhood from Bolwoningen or “Ball House.”
This idea may recall the Buckminsterfuller geodetic dome, which enjoyed some degree of utopian trends in the 1960s and 70s. Like Fuller and most other visionaries, Claykamp worked under certain monomanias. He was associated with gloves. “The most organic and natural shape possible. After all, roundness is everywhere. We live on and are born from the Earth. Gloves combine the largest volume possible with the lowest possible surface area, so minimal material is required. ” The 50 Bolwoningen, built at S‑ Hertogenbosch, known as Den Bosch, was quickly manufactured from reinforced glass concrete, but not the polyester originally designated, but the polyester didn’t last for 40 years.
Since they were published in 1984, Bolwoningen has been living continuously. in Video at the top of the postYouTuber Tom Scott has made a visit to one of them, and its residents seem reasonably satisfied. (They seem to be “comfortable” in the winter.
Like geodetic domes, their round walls make it difficult to use the theoretically generous interior space efficiently, at least without commissioning custom-made furniture. Leaking windows is also a problem with perennials. Each Bolwarning can comfortably accommodate one or two simple lives, but only the most utopian-conscious people try to raise a family with one of them. Like any other round or round home design, expansion is not physically practical, even if it is legally possible.
Used as a social housing by local governments, Bolwoningen enjoys a protected historic status. (Similarly, given the connection between Dutch glass blowing art and industry, it was in glass factories that Claykamp first began converting spheres.) And unlike most aesthetically radical housing developments, they don’t give seeds, but rather they didn’t receive the necessary maintenance for decades. As a result, you can get that idea as a neighborhood that is attractive to people whose lifestyle is suited to its unusual structure and its inclusive environment. Walking video tour right above. By the time Kreijkamp passed away in 2014, he appears to have regretted to some extent that the mass-produced spherical home has not been proven to be the next big thing. However, he lived to see the emergence of the “small house” movement.
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Based in Seoul Colin marshall Write and broadcasting stationTS about cities, languages, and culture. His projects include the Substack Newsletter Books about cities And the book The Stateless City: Walking through 21st century Los Angeles. Follow him on social networks previously known as Twitter @colinmarshall.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
