In the middle of an area dominated by the usual porched houses, gallery flats and maisonettes from the seventies, three identical blocks with a total of 33 ground-bound houses have been designed. Identical however? The residents have the choice to expand their house with an extra room on top of their roof shaped like an eye that overlooks the area. Therefore, the three blocks will never be identical after all. Secret number one.
These three blocks are literally newcomers to the Groenoord-Zuid neighbourhood. They do everything differently. As opposed to the anonymous, green public spaces that surround the flats, in this design was chosen for small, intimate outside spaces that serve as an extension of the houses. As opposed to the classic and strict division between the front façade and the back facade of the flats, these three blocks only have a front. As opposed to the ruthlessly hard roof edges of the flats, is the irregular ridge created by the optional attic rooms and the incisions of the terraces. As opposed to the clearly countable repetition of the houses in the flats, the three blocks have a façade from which it cannot be read whether there are two or twenty houses behind it. Secret number two.
There they are, the blocks, like hollow monoliths on the Laan van Bol’es, like dark trunks in between the green. They reveal nothing on the outside. Everything takes place on the inside. And yet, in each block there is one house that always escapes the direction of introversion. It is the eleventh house. The house with two front doors. The house with an isolated outside storeroom. The house with an average back garden that has become a patio. The house with the most common floor plan compared to the other ten. Secret number three.