“-Re” House together with “-Re” Adapt are two series part of a project in which I review, refine and redesign residential projects available on the Dutch housing market. “-Re” House touches projects that have been completed after the year 2000 and could have been done more efficiently to begin with, while “-Re” Adapt looks at how to better adapt older residential architecture that was designed in a different cultural and historical context. 

This little apartment is located in an old area of a famous Dutch city.  By the time it had made its way to me it had already seen at least one complete restructuration of layout. My task was simply to showcase a clear and effective day use for future residents. 

Original layout:
•  Completed: 1906
Surface: 63m²
Outdoor space: 2m²

• As the plan had already seen major restructuring, there are no major issues with its layout. The only room that might pose a problem in finding an effective solution is the living room/kitchen. And that simply because one of the key requests was to have it equipped with a standard TV area. 

If I  were to design this layout for myself, I would most definitely replace the traditional TV with a projector and a screen. The choice is backed up by the following arguments:  
           1. More freedom and choices in the layout of the room as one of its major blocks that directs flow would now be gone. 
         2. The slow death of the traditional media and the rise of internet based open format content has made it so that multiple generations see no more use in renewing their subscriptions to the traditional media channels. 
I personally still own a TV, however I no longer have subscriptions to the standard media channels. I do however, like most people today own a Netflix subscription and a big pile of  slowly becoming obsolete DVD’s. 
Taking in consideration that practically anything can be watched (and implicitly projected) from a computer, a retractable screen, a projector and a coffee table are all the tools one would need.  

New layout:

• The choice of a projector would allow me to remove the TV block and replace the table with a round one creating a proper focal point and a much more efficient use of the space. 
However, as that was not part of the available options, my choice was to create a distinction between the living/TV space and the dining area through the TV block. 

Click here for more “-Re” House projects
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