Cube Houses

Brief information

In the Cube Houses, an ordinary shape is placed in an unusual position: the cube does not rest on one of its faces, but visually stands on the apex of a hexagonal pylon. Because of this, the residential building looks like a geometric experiment, although inside it remains a fully functional apartment with an entrance, living room, bedrooms, and sometimes a small garden at the top.

The Rotterdam complex was built in 1984 to a design by Piet Blom on Overblaak Street. Here, 38 houses and 2 super-cubes are connected into a single structure, so it is better to view them not as separate strange little houses, but as a connected system. From above, this system resembles an impossible triangle: the effect comes precisely from the repetition of cubes rotated in the same way.

What to notice first

The main detail is the point of support. The cube is set on its apex and visually rests on a hexagonal pylon, so the base appears narrower than the living volume itself. This device explains why the houses look not randomly tilted, but assembled according to a strict rule.

It is worth comparing the exterior geometry with the layout of the apartment. The walls and windows are inclined to the floor at an angle of 54.7 degrees, and this is not only a facade effect: out of about 100 square meters, roughly a quarter of the space cannot be used normally because of the slanted walls. The layout is also governed by the vertical axis: the entrance is on the ground floor, above it are the living room with kitchen and the bedrooms, while the top level is sometimes turned into a small garden. In this way, the exterior trick immediately becomes a fact of everyday living.