Patio House

A house on a dike in Amsterdam was reconverted for a young family. Since its construction in 1920, the house had been extended in a series of projects that enlarged the house but created poor lighting conditions and fragmented rooms. The central spatial idea was to break out the middle of the house and create a patio around which a new spatial configuration could be designed.

At the ground floor, which is at the elevation of the dike, a roof terrace is extended around the patio, creating vertically connected open spaces with different atmospheres and microclimates. To make full use of the light created by the breakthroughs, custom-designed stairs were constructed to be as light and transparant.