Topics

Features

News Articles

U.S. architect Adam Kalkin to design Utrecht home

Addition for Leidsche Rijn subdivision


Tags: Excerpts from the Windmill

UTRECHT, the Netherlands – Well-known U.S. architect Adam Kalkin has been commissioned to design an innovative home for the city's massive new subdivision Leidsche Rijn. Kalkin has attracted widespread attention for his Quik House kits, prefabricated from recycled shipping containers.

The author of the recent book ‘Architecture and Hygiene' first surveyed the Utrecht area site and landscape for inspiration. Kalkin (41) is one of several international artists and architects who were invited to contribute ‘ideal houses' to the project.

The U.S. architect also leveled criticism at the Leidsche Rijn project. He suggested that Utrecht and the neighbouring villages will be dwarfed by the new subdivision, which in his opinion is too much a ‘design' instead of having grown like a ‘normal city.'

The Kalkin house will be built at a yet unspecified location.

Leidsche Rijn, at the western perimeter of one of the oldest cities in the country, is the largest housing and industrial development in the Netherlands. It calls for the construction of 30.000 houses by 2015, when it will be home to an estimated 80.000 residents. Most of the site's Langerak, Parkwijk and Veldhuizen neighbourhoods are already occupied, while the De Wetering industrial park is in full operation. The district is designed and built neighbourhood by neighbourhood, an approach which enables urban planners and architects on an ongoing basis to accommodate new developments.

During the initial construction of some of the neighbourhoods, archeologists have dug up many artifacts from the Roman era, including cargo ships and harbour quays.