mobius house case study

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AD Classics: Möbius House / UNStudio

• Written by Maria-Cristina Florian
• Architects: UNStudio
• Area Area of this architecture project Area:  520 m²
• Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  1998
• Photographs Photographs: Christian Richters , Eva Bloem

In 1993 a young professional couple from Amsterdam set out to build a private house unlike any other. They wanted to create something that “would be recognized as a reference in terms of renewal of the architectural language.” They reached out to several architects, including Rem Koolhaas, but finally decided to entrust the commission to Dutch architect Ben van Berkel after he studied the site and came up with a vision for the project, relating it to the couple’s lifestyle.

Located in Het Gooi , its design took over 5 years, going through several iterations, but always coming back to its core inspiration: the Möbius loop. The shape, defined as a single-sided surface with no boundaries, was the key to a new architectural language that aimed to weave together all the individual activities of each family member, allowing the functional program to be integrated within the dynamic structure. By 1998, when the house was completed, it became widely published and internationally recognized. It also became a sort of manifesto for its architect, as it uses an organizational principle to inform the final image.

To create this new type of architectural language that was requested, Van Berkel based his concept on his clients’ type of lifestyle. The design creates a fluid circulation between the different functions of the space, allowing for areas for work, sleep, playing, socializing, and intimacy, all defined by ambiguous boundaries. The shape of the Möbius loop thus became linked to the idea of the 24-hour living and working cycle of the family. As the loop inverts, the exterior becomes the interior and vice versa, creating a strong relationship between the house and the landscape. In the words of Van Berkel , the idea of incorporating the Möbius loop into the design originated from his “interest in mathematics, science, complexity theory, chaos theory, and topological surfaces.”

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This architectural loop produces a continuity and integration of living and working areas. The concrete and glass exterior of the house, too, seems to fold back on itself: from one perspective the glass is a skin slipped over a concrete house; from another, the building is a glass house framed by concrete. - Terence Riley, curator of the ‘The Un-Private House’ exhibition at MoMA

The complex design also capitalized on one of the most important innovations of the time: 3D computer modeling. While the first sketches were hand-drawn, by 1995 the design process became computerized. Van Berkel became acquainted with the new technology while working as a teacher at Columbia University , which launched its famous paperless studio in the same year. This new tool allowed for a completely different type of experimentation, fusing drawing and modeling to investigate and create new spatial effects with increasing complexities. The final image of the Möbius House is tributary to these technologies, which placed it at the forefront of parametric design at the time.

It was a very exciting time. We were playing and testing how computation design could be manipulated by parametric variants. It was a very special moment for parametric design, very fresh and very promising. – Ben van Berkel, in an interview with Vladimir Belogolovsky

At first glance, the functional program seems modest, containing two work studios in addition to the typical elements of a private house. However, architect Ben van Berkel and his wife Caroline Bos used this opportunity to experiment with concepts of spatial ambiguity, designing two independent circulation paths that run parallel through a sequence of spaces. The concept of the Möbius strip proves useful in that it transforms the two surfaces of the strip into one continuous surface by twisting the material. This concept gains an architectural shape by allowing primary circulation paths to extend through the lengths of the longitudinal axis, opening sight lines that connect the programmed spaces. The resulting spaces rarely feature right angles as the space continuously contracts and expands in response to the daily routine of the residents.

Instead of walls and doors, the different spaces within are defined by variations in the ceiling heights. Higher spaces are created for dynamic social interactions, while dropped ceilings create an atmosphere for solitary reflection. Abstract furniture pieces emerge from the massing of the building indicating in subtle ways the intended use of the space. These soft variations in form, combined with sculptural points of interest and the encouragement of a curious wandering through the spaces of the house make the structure no more a ‘machine for living,’ but rather ‘ an environment for living .’

The house features a minimal material palette being rendered almost exclusively in concrete and glass. This translates without distractions the dynamic tectonics of the design. Heaviness and transparency communicate movement as they play off one another. One example is the south-facing curtain wall abruptly interrupted by a concrete obstruction, orienting views and creating a rhythm in the perception of spaces. Concrete cantilevered elements also create interactions between the circulation paths and the living spaces and serve as attention-drawing sculptural elements.

I particularly like one cantilever over the entry below as it leads to the master bedroom. That’s the moment of suspension where the landscape opens up in a very spectacular way. Suddenly, you step into the landscape through the residential architecture. - Ben van Berkel

The folding and unfolding of spaces integrate the structure within its natural landscape. Located on a secluded and densely wooded plot, the building uses its glazed surfaces to interact with its surroundings. As the loop inverts, landscape is brought in and the exterior structure of the house turns into interior furniture, an artificial landscape.

The Möbius House came out of the four quadrants layout; it is a landscape design idea. Every quadrant has a dedicated zone for each of the four people in the house. Those four zones are combined with a number 8-shaped path in the natural landscape . So, I wanted to combine clockwise the experience of exploring the four quadrants of the landscape into one organizational entity. - Ben van Berkel

Upon opening, the Möbius House gained immediate recognition. It became widely published both in the Netherlands and internationally. In 1999, the Museum of Modern Art in New York opened a major exhibition titled “ The Un-Private House ” featuring the project. By the time of the opening, Ben Van Berkel and his wife Caroline Bos had already relaunched their office as UNStudio . Despite its modest size, the project remains a turning point in Ben van Berkel ’s prolific career, establishing him as an innovator and one of the pioneers of parametric design and serving as a sort of manifesto for the future works of his office.

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Moebius House

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Mobius House

The organizational and formal structure of the private house is based on a double-locked torus, the mobius loop. The intertwining trajectory of the loop relates to the 24-hour living and working cycle of the family, where individual working spaces and bedrooms are aligned but collective areas are situated at the crossing points of the paths. In a similar manner these unfolding lines are materialized with glass and concrete, swapping the conventional use of these materials.

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Architecture | Möbius House

Möbius house.

With its low-slung, elongated outlines the private house forms a link between the different features of the surroundings; the spatial loop enables the house to take in the extreme aspects of the landscape.

By being stretched to the maximum, rather than displaying a compact or tall shape, the house conveys from the interior the idea of a walk in the countrysite.

The Möbius loop, the spatial quality of which means that it is present in both plan and section, translates into the interior into a 24-hour cycle of sleeping, working and living. As the loop turns inside out the materialization follows these change-overs; glazed details and concrete structural elements swap roles as glazed facades are put in front of the concrete construction, dividing walls are made of glass and furniture such as tables and stairs are made of concrete.

The diagram

The diagram of the double-locked torus conveys the organization of two intertwining paths, which trace how two people can live together, yet apart, meeting at certain points, which become shared spaces. The idea of two entities running their own trajectories but sharing certain moments, possibly also reversing roles at certain points, is extended to include the materialization of the building and its construction. The instrumentalization of this simple, borrowed drawing is the key. The two interlocking lines are suggestive of the formal organization of the building, but that is only the beginning; diagrammatic architecture is a process of unfolding and ultimately of liberation. The diagram liberates architecture from language, interpretation, and signification.

The diagram for the Möbius house consists of two interlocking lines. The double-locked torus integrates programme, circulation and structure seamlessly.  As the diagram unfolds, the interlocking lines come to stand for the two main materials used for the house, glass and concrete, which move in front of each other and switch places.

The abstraction of the diagram facilitates different interpretations, such as working with two materials and using time in relation to the distribution. As a graphic representation of 24 hours of family life, the double-locked torus acquires a time-space dimension, which leads to the implementation of the Möbius band. The unfolding of time and the internal regulation of the program relate to the concept of the double-locked torus. Equally, the site and its relationship to the building are important for the design. The site covers two hectares, which are divided into four areas distinct in character. Linking these with the internal organization of the Möbius band transforms living in the house into a walk in the landscape.

The mathematical model of the Möbius is not literally transferred to the building, but is conceptualized or thematized and can be found in architectural ingredients, such as the light, the staircases, and the way in which people move through the house. So, while the Möbius diagram introduces aspects of duration and trajectory, the diagram is worked into the building in a mutated way.

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Mobius House

CONCEPT NOTE – MOBIUS HOUSE Mobius house is a resultant of the pursuit of the archetypal image of a pavilion in the landscape through processes that strive to accommodate contemporary building and living conditions, while in simultaneous dialogue with rich traditional and vernacular references. The intentions of re-placing lost ground and achieving forthrightness in construct for this single storey building called for a configuration of flat slabs spanning between load-bearing laterite masonry walls. Corresponding to the plot geometry, the building is configured in an ‘L’. The intensity of references from the Portuguese building forms – great churches with their bell-towers and buttresses, imposing forts and their bastions, massive houses with large volumes and big windows – offered the opportunity of adapting institutional architectonics reinterpreted/redefined to a domestic scale. The language which thus evolved is neither welcoming nor intimidating; instead, it merely frames spaces. The type – each arm of the ‘L’ – is a generous living bay open on both ends and flanked on one side by servant spaces. The few formal indulgences in a rather dormant built-form have to do with the obtuse edges of the ‘L’. While one edge forms the entrance passage to the house, the other is the right of way for the visitors moving to and from the beach. The entrance passage is flanked by the building on one side and by a compound wall on the other, which rises as one proceeds up the passage and doubles up as a bracing to the OHWT tower. While the bracing on the left hits a tower as the passage culminates at the vertex, the terrace line acting as the edifice on the right climbs down a flight of steps to reveal the arrival court – the prelude to the experience, located at the node anchoring the two arms of the ‘L’. It’s precisely between this zone that the Mobius nature of house is born, the birth of delusion between outside-inside…the illusion of threshold between landscape and the house comes alive. The edifice towards the right of way is an undulating surface, expressing a release analogous to the recoil of a stretched piece of elastic when snapped. Subsequently, the structure is un-self-conscious yet present; a presence which may appear alien at the initial glance. However, space is a greater concern here than form, which, perhaps when the ivy shrouds the edifice, one may see better. The course of action has been one of minimality in process rather than in appearance. Just as the plan has been reduced of elementality, so do the finishes employ reduction in layers/ materials. For instance, to drain the terrace valleys, sufficient measures were created within the slab while casting the RCC with required waterproofing ingredients, thus avoiding any additional layers for either waterproofing or slopes. The slab soffit has been left exposed; and the waterproof plywood sheets used as form-work were recycled to make the required furniture for the house. Paint - both from the wall and the plywood surfaces - has been done away with since the base layer of putty itself provides adequate protection. Similarly, the bedding mortar itself – when reconstituted and laid appropriately – gives the IPS floor-finish, thus avoiding the need for any further layer of stone or tile finishes. Each of these processes gives rise to its own appropriate aesthetic, just as rethinking the plan allows for a richer, if not new, spatiality. Nevertheless, both demand a shift from conventions (personal or collective), not only in the designer’s approach but also in the inhabitant’s ways of seeing. This adaptable built form attempts to accommodate the contemporary nomadic urban existence, which finds urban abrade repulsive and yet cannot survive without urban affluence. The context that this house desires to address is the Goan landscape: of consuming it and getting consumed. Oscillating between the inside and outside, between the familiarity and unfamiliarity of scales, views and textures, inhabiting this beach house is akin to movement on and about a Mobius strip.

Project Title : Mobius House Location : Anjuna, Goa Client : Neil D’Souza Area :2200 Sq Ft Structural Consultant : Shekher Bhagwat, Mumbai Text : Siddhartha Singh Photography : Piyush Rana & Vikram Ponnappa

Girish Dariyav Karnawat and Punit Mehrotra

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Mobius House

Gooi, netherlands, other projects by unstudio, echo, tu delft, jetbrains office campus, p.c. hooftstraat 138, daegu wolbae ipark – residential blocks 1 and 2, raffles city hangzhou, le toison d'or, arnhem central, unstudio tower, the ardmore residence, fairyland guorui villas, theater on the parade, theatre de stoep, the w.i.n.d. house, kutaisi international airport, mirai house at leiden bio science park, haus am weinberg, centre for virtual engineering, mumuth music and theater school, education executive agency & tax offices, product spec sheet, collaborating firms.

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Möbius House

With its low-slung, elongated outlines the private house forms a link between the different features of the surroundings; the spatial loop enables the house to take in the extreme aspects of the landscape. By being stretched to the maximum, rather than displaying a compact or tall shape, the house conveys from the interior the idea of a walk in the countrysite.

The Möbius loop, the spatial quality of which means that it is present in both plan and section, translates into the interior into a 24-hour cycle of sleeping, working and living. As the loop turns inside out the materialization follows these change-overs; glazed details and concrete structural elements swap roles as glazed facades are put in front of the concrete construction, dividing walls are made of glass and furniture such as tables and stairs are made of concrete.

The diagram:

PRIVATE The diagram of the double-locked torus conveys the organization of two intertwining paths, which trace how two people can live together, yet apart, meeting at certain points, which become shared spaces. The idea of two entities running their own trajectories but sharing certain moments, possibly also reversing roles at certain points, is extended to include the materialization of the building and its construction. The instrumentalization of this simple, borrowed drawing is the key. The two interlocking lines are suggestive of the formal organization of the building, but that is only the beginning; diagrammatic architecture is a process of unfolding and ultimately of liberation. The diagram liberates architecture from language, interpretation, and signification.TC \l 4 "The diagram of the double-locked torus conveys the organization of two intertwining paths, which trace how two people can live together, yet apart, meeting at certain points, which become shared spaces. The idea of two entities running their own trajectories but sharing certain moments, possibly also reversing roles at certain points, is extended to include the materialization of the building and its construction. The instrumentalization of this simple, borrowed drawing is the key. The two interlocking lines are suggestive of the formal organization of the building, but that is only the beginning; diagrammatic architecture is a process of unfolding and ultimately of liberation. The diagram liberates architecture from language, interpretation, and signification."

The diagram for the Möbius house consists of two interlocking lines. The double-locked torus integrates programme, circulation and structure seamlessly. As the diagram unfolds, the interlocking lines come to stand for the two main materials used for the house, glass and concrete, which move in front of each other and switch places.

The abstraction of the diagram facilitates different interpretations, such as working with two materials and using time in relation to the distribution. As a graphic representation of 24 hours of family life, the double-locked torus acquires a time-space dimension, which leads to the implementation of the Möbius band. The unfolding of time and the internal regulation of the program relate to the concept of the double-locked torus. Equally, the site and its relationship to the building are important for the design. The site covers two hectares, which are divided into four areas distinct in character. Linking these with the internal organization of the Möbius band transforms living in the house into a walk in the landscape.

The mathematical model of the Möbius is not literally transferred to the building, but is conceptualized or thematized and can be found in architectural ingredients, such as the light, the staircases, and the way in which people move through the house. So, while the Möbius diagram introduces aspects of duration and trajectory, the diagram is worked into the building in a mutated way.

UN Studio: Ben van Berkel with Aad Krom, Jen Alkema and Matthias Blass, Remco Bruggink, Marc Dijkman, Casper le Fevre, Rob Hootsmans, Tycho Soffree, Giovanni Tedesco, Harm Wassink

West 8, Rotterdam

Structural Engineering: ABT, Velp

• Concrete Interiors
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Möbius House

An early digital model, animated and integrated into a diagram that acts as a metaphoric project..

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Every day is unlike yesterday: The life inside the Möbius House

by Vladimir Belogolovsky Published on : Jan 01, 2024

When a young Amsterdam -based architect Ben van Berkel was asked to design a house for a professional couple with two toddlers, their interest was not in building just another dwelling. In addition to a house where it would be easy and joyful to live, their brief challenged the architect to push for a real breakthrough, namely to design “a house that would be recognised as a reference in terms of a renewal of the architectural language.” However, the couple’s initial task was to find the right architect. The project started in 1993, a recession time when many architects were starving for work. After weighing their options and interviewing some talented architects, including Rem Koolhaas —not yet the megastar he is today, still, after 15 years of practice, he had many thought-provoking projects under his belt and completed his seminal Villa dall'Ava on the outskirts of Paris two years earlier—the couple settled on hiring Ben van Berkel.

Why do you think your clients chose you and not Koolhaas? I ask van Berkel straightforwardly. It is our second one-on-one conversation. The first was a bit about everything but now I want to focus specifically on this one project, a manifesto of sorts, as it defined a whole direction in the architect’s subsequent research. And just like the clients had hoped for, the Möbius House, as it was christened, did expand the field of architecture . 

I believe what made a difference — explains the architect— is that I went to the site and studied it carefully and already had ideas about it. I knew what kind of house it would be. I could see clearly where different rooms would go, how they would be shaped, and how they would relate to each other. They specifically liked that I wanted to understand their lifestyle and express it in the design of the house.

Ultimately, it was about whether to hire an architect with experience or to work with someone younger for whom this project could open new possibilities. It was also about building a livable house. Van Berkel was then just starting; he co-founded his eponymous practice with his then-wife Caroline Bos five years earlier (they later relaunched it as UNStudio , now a 300-member force working out of six cities in Europe , Asia , the Middle East , and Australia ) and apart from a villa and a small office building had been working on only a handful of projects, although his Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam , a swan-shaped iconic structure, not yet completed, was already talked about and a strong symbol of a promising career.

The Möbius House—on a suburban lot in Naarden, a small town less than half an hour's drive southeast of Amsterdam—is designed around the idea of a walk in the countryside, a movement organised along an elongated figure eight, or mathematically speaking, the Möbius strip or a loop, a half-twisted continuous surface. The architect overlaid the interior spaces of the house following this fluid configuration taking into account the family’s daily activities from the morning to daytime, evening, and night. He then organised these as a clockwise movement. Thus, the spatial organisation of the house, a double-locked torus made up of two intertwining paths, traces how the inhabitants can live together, yet apart, meeting at certain points and parting at others. This geometry was closely attuned to different aspects of the family’s private life—sleeping, working, playing, and eating. Various adjacencies are planned in the residential design to reflect the inhabitants' daily routines, expressing moments, both anticipated and incidental.

To make sure I fully understand the way the house was conceived, Van Berkel picks up a heavy blue marker and quickly starts drawing the Möbius loop diagram with two main axes slicing it into four corner areas.

Here it is —he points to the sketch— The Möbius House came out of the four quadrants layout; it is a landscape design idea. Every quadrant has a dedicated zone for each of the four people in the house. Those four zones are combined with a number 8-shaped path in the natural landscape . So, I wanted to combine clockwise the experience of exploring the four quadrants of the landscape into one organizational entity.

Where did the idea of utilising the Möbius loop come from? I enquire.

From my interest in mathematics, science, complexity theory, chaos theory, and topological surfaces. Working with mathematical and organisational diagrams was a result of my interest in such works as The Endless House by Frederick Kiesler, the work of John Lautner in LA, and other examples in which houses literally grow out of the ground. The design process was continuous editing. The challenge was to take all the programmatic requirements and express them in a single gesture.

Another project that may come to mind is Konstantin Melnikov’s home and studio in the heart of Moscow . This freestanding structure consists of two intersecting cylindrical towers, almost entirely punched with an array of small equidistant hexagonal apertures. In its plan, the residence is outlined by number eight. When I bring it up, my vis-à-vis admits the originality of that project and its virtues as a spatial and intellectual play but rejects it as an influence— in the Möbius House we are dealing with a different level of complexity— he insists. I agree and we move on. After all, I attentively follow diagrams, floor plans, and photos with both my eyes and fingers just to try to better imagine what the space inside may feel like. The continuous flow, a fluid collision of different zones is an alluring dance of volumes and surfaces made primarily of two contrasting materials— concrete and glass . They twist and change places again and again. You look from one vantage point and the glass appears to be the skin wrapping a concrete house. You look in another direction and you see a glass house framed by concrete masses.

I wonder, what was the initial design brief like?

They had very specific requirements. This is a professional couple, publishing executives; both intended to work from home. So, each would have an independent working space. This idea of living together and having private spaces was clearly articulated. Another interesting request was that they wanted to see the kids without necessarily hearing them, not all the time, anyway. [Laughs.] 

The clients must have also really liked the idea of living very close to the landscape, right?

Absolutely! And not in a traditional way but submerging under it, floating over, and literally in between the trees.

What are your favorite moments in the house?

I particularly like one cantilever over the entry below as it leads to the master bedroom. That’s the moment of suspension where the landscape opens up in a very spectacular way. Suddenly, you step into the landscape through the residential architecture . Then there is a concrete table in the living room that cantilevers almost eight meters from the fireplace. It just floats. Understandably, it is hard for the architect to select just a few elements in the house where everything is custom-designed: cast-concrete furniture, carpets, curtains, and so many details in bedrooms and bathrooms, all fully integrated and interrelated. Every detail is unique.

There are some traditional-looking straight-up columns in the house. What is the reason for combining two support systems—folds and columns?

I love columns! I also like spaces that combine two systems into one, as in the case of our Arnhem Central Station where a single element, a cross between a column and continuous surface, a sort of sliced mushroom-looking support that carries all the loads. But in the Möbius House, there was a need for occasional columns because of the big volume and extensive cantilevers.

There is a situation where you placed two bulky columns very close to each other. Intentionally?

I prefer doubling columns. When you have a pair, you tend to look in between them, which I like. These columns are integrated with furniture elements that create interesting spatial moments. 

Encountering such moments is what makes the experience of living in the house unique every day and every moment. The architect is still in touch with the family. They told him repeatedly that every day the house gives them a new life. Every day is different. Every day is unlike yesterday. Everything changes, both inside and outside—there are new vistas, juxtapositions, reflections, sunlight patterns, shadows, and framed views of the surrounding trees that also change all the time.

I imagine when the house was being designed Gilles Deleuze was discussed a lot. He expressed such notions as the idea of radical freedom, instability, continuous unfolding, movement, being in flux, and a possibility of newness. All of these sensations can be experienced in the house quite dramatically, right?

Sure, I was fascinated by Deleuze for a long time. In the 1990s there was a strong interest in computational design and Deleuze was very popular then. He defined spaces more than other space-time thinkers. Sigfried Giedion and Le Corbusier were about the linearity of experiencing architecture. But Deleuze introduced a kaleidoscopic reading of space as if you were in many places at once.

Of course, to build such a complex space van Berkel needed new design tools. They came just in time. In the early-mid 1990s parametric design was still in its infancy. For example, the groundbreaking Columbia University’s paperless studio was initiated in 1995. Van Berkel was one of the teachers there along with Hani Rashid, Stan Allen, Greg Lynn, Jesse Reiser, and Alejandro Zaera-Polo among others. The cohort constituted the new wave of architectural thinkers. 3D modeling tools were still marginally used in the industry and had to be developed by offices largely on their own. The initial drafts of the Möbius House were freehand sketches and hand-made models, but by the time technical drawings were being developed in 1995, computers were in use. In fact, the first computer van Berkel’s office bought was to work on the design of the Möbius House.  

We started this dialogue: What new tools could be used to bring new visual effects to architecture? How could such tools stimulate and envision the new role of a contemporary architect? How could new tools give architects new creative freedoms? How could new spatial effects be achieved? That’s what you can taste in the design of the Möbius House because conceptually it is a house that anticipated 3D computer modeling tools and it was refined once these tools became available.

To be sure that was a very exciting time. Architects were playing and testing how computational design could be manipulated by parametric variants. It was a very special moment for parametric design, very fresh and very promising. In one of van Berkel’s texts, I read how he likened his design process to mixing music . He responded: The beauty of music is that it touches you so quickly and so powerfully. I hope architecture too could rise to that level.

Walking through the Möbius House, for sure, is an emotional experience. Yet, its geometric complexity falls into the logic of a system. As you navigate your way through the house there are just three angles along the entire path—7, 9, and 11 degrees. Repeated in a variety of ways this play with the repetition of just a few elements evokes listening to one piece of music with a characteristic rhythm. So, music is an appropriate metaphor for architecture and we can feel it emotionally through movement.

What makes the Möbius House interesting is not only that it follows the configuration of a diagram but also because of the presence of many layers that overlap here. A clockwise day cycle along the number 8-shaped loop corresponds to various rooms. The path connecting them is a sequence of concrete and glass facades that define both exterior and interior volumes. Sometimes we see a floor-to-ceiling glass wall separating adjacent interiors. They create moments where you can see other inhabitants but can’t hear them, just like the clients originally envisioned. The same happens with the continuous concrete wall which transitions from the façade to interior splitting and extending into furniture elements cast in concrete.

Was this house the first project in which the Möbius strip was used?

It was. Later we used it again and again. Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart was perhaps the most well-known example. Experiencing space in the movement was the key design principle. My architecture is diagrammatic, logical, and people-oriented. The idea is to create a kaleidoscopic experience of spaces. I always want to see where I come from. I never believed in the linearity of the organisational layout. I believe in the experiential quality of architecture. In the Möbius House, we tested our ideas to use them as prototypes for new thinking.

In other words, it is the spatial organisation, not the image that drives van Berkel’s projects. That’s how he conceives all his structures. Architecture follows this logic and, it is in this process that it finds ways to express itself. Was the house built exactly the way it was intended —I ask at last—were there any changes?

No changes. That’s what was so wonderful. We built exactly what we had in mind. This couple still lives there; of course, the children have grown up.

• Ben Van Berkel
• Concrete Architecture
• Parametric Architecture
• Residential Architecture
• Residential Design
• The Netherlands

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About Author

Vladimir Belogolovsky

Vladimir is an American curator, critic, and columnist with STIR. He graduated from the Cooper Union School of Architecture (1996) and after practicing architecture for 12 years, founded New York-based Curatorial Project. It focuses on the curation and design of architectural exhibitions. He has interviewed over 400 architects; written 15 books, including  Conversations with Architects  and  China Dialogues ; curated over 50 exhibitions, and has lectured in more than 30 countries.

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Special problems in architectural design, mobius house.

Student’s final presentation for House Analysis assignment.

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Home > SAM_FOX > MRC > BCS > 122

Building Case Studies

Project Name

Mobius house in het gooi, the netherlands.

Download Full Text (251 KB)

Project Location

Het Gooi, Holland

Year of Completion

Project architect.

Ben van Berkel

Private Owner

Student Author

Alison Andrews

Archived Year

Marine West Coast

Application

Material and its properties, other sources.

Architect website: http://www.unstudio.com

Other: http://en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php/Moebius_House

Environmental Response

Sustainable material and strong

Recommended Citation

van Berkel, Ben, "Mobius House in Het Gooi, The Netherlands" (1997). Building Case Studies . 122. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/bcs/122

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