8. Cubic Houses , Rotterdam, Netherlands
Kubuswoningen, or cube houses, are a set of innovative houses built in Rotterdam and Helmond in The Netherlands, designed by architect Piet Blom and based on the concept of “living as an urban roof”: high density housing with sufficient space on the ground level. Blom tilted the cube of a conventional house 45 degrees, and rested it upon a hexagon-shaped pylon. His design represents a village within a city, where each house represents a tree, and all the houses together, a forest
Three test versions were first constructed in 1974, and in 1977 18 houses were constructed in Helmond. The many houses required for a “woonwoud” (English: living woods) were never realized. The houses in Rotterdam were designed in 1977 in a plan of 55, of which 39 were built. The cube houses in Helmond surrounded a theater, Theater ‘t Speelhuis, which was destroyed by a large fire on 29 December 2011.
The Basket Building is in Newark, Ohio, about 3 miles from where I live. I would just LOVE to know if any daring pilot has put a plane through the handles…and lived to tell about it.