Workhome-Playhome is a vibrant Rotterdam home by Lagado Architects

The 2 founders of Lagado Architects have revamped their very own townhouse in Rotterdam to characteristic daring live-work areas and a sculptural blue staircase.

The pale-brick townhouse – renamed Workhome-Playhome – is located in Noordereiland, a largely residential neighbourhood surrounded by the Nieuwe Maas river.

It is shared by the founders of Lagado Architects, Victor Verhagen and Maria Vasiloglou, and their kids.

Sad with the new-build residence’s standardised flooring plan, the couple overhauled the inside to incorporate extra versatile residing areas that may very well be used for work or play.

“We preferred the thought of getting a multifunctional area in our home to do inventive issues aside from the living-room,” they instructed Dezeen.

“The primary objective of the design was to create an atmosphere that may deal with all kinds of use, on the identical time, with out giving up character in favour of efficiency.”

The pair additionally thought that utilizing a daring array of colors within the revamp would give the previously nondescript residence a extra “outspoken character”.

On the second flooring of the home is now an open loft-style room. It features a desk the place Verhagen and Vasiloglou can work, or the youngsters can do homework and humanities and crafts.

There may be additionally a rest room clad in mint-green tiles.

Furnishings have largely been omitted from the room in order that, when obligatory, it may be changed into a visitor room or used for indoor train.

The one mounted aspect is a vivid blue staircase, which extends by means of all three ranges of the house and as much as its roof terrace.

To create it, the architects merely painted the present steps and erected an identical balustrade. The balustrade is punctuated with triangular openings, giving inhabitants glimpses of various rooms as they climb up and down the steps.

“Initially we thought to take away the steps however we shortly realised that it was not obligatory as a result of their place within the total flooring plan was well-considered,” defined Verhagen and Vasiloglou.

“We took them as a given, which finally sparked our creativity to show the staircase right into a particular aspect of the home,” they continued.

Skinny Rotterdam home for 2 architects options black brickwork and hid home windows

“We wished so as to add a vertical spatial expertise to the horizontally layered home, and handled the staircase as a steady sculpture.”

Sleeping quarters have been concentrated to the primary flooring, which Verhagen and Vasiloglou describe because the “darkish coronary heart” of the home.

Joinery right here has been painted a deep, plum-purple hue.

The household lounge is at floor stage, and has been organized in order that views of the backyard are left unspoilt. A chartreuse-yellow daybed has been pushed up in opposition to the wall, dressed with contrasting navy and pink cushions.

The portion of the staircase right here has additionally been painted pink and given shelving the place the youngsters can hold their toys.

An ashwood storage unit dominates the adjoining kitchen, full with burnt-orange niches. Considered one of them holds the fridge, whereas the others are used to show private ornaments and books.

Further teal-coloured cabinets – which are supposed to complement the blue terrazzo flooring – have been mounted in opposition to the tiled splashback.

A small breakfast bar has additionally been created immediately in entrance of the kitchen window, which is lined with potted vegetation.

Lagado Architects was established by Victor Verhagen and Maria Vasiloglou in 2011.

It is not the one observe to tweak a typical Rotterdam townhouse – in 2017, Shift Structure Urbanism changed the rear facade of a townhouse within the Dutch metropolis with expansive panels of glazing, permitting two light-filled residences to be created on the within.

Architects Gwendolyn Huisman and Marijn Boterman additionally designed their very own townhouse in Rotterdam to unusually characteristic all-black brickwork and hidden home windows.

Images is courtesy of Rubén Dario Kleimeer and Lagado Architects.