Bolwoningen are Dutch spherical houses in the Maaspoort neighborhood of

's-Hertogenbosch s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 160,783. It is the capital of ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. It consists of 50 spherical houses grouped together near to a canal.

History

The houses were built in 1984 by artist and sculptor with a grant from the government to build experimental housing.

Design

Each Bolwoning (literally 'sphere house', or 'ball house') is constructed with Glass fiber reinforced concrete. The houses were prefabricated in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

and could be erected in as little as one day and were designed to have low energy consumption and easy maintenance. Each house has three main levels, with storage in bottom. The first, bottom level is the bedroom, the second, middle is the bathroom, and the third, top floor is the living space. The top space features unique round windows that offer panoramic views. Each houses's total floor space is 55 square meters (600 sq. ft.), with a diameter of 5.5 meters (18'). The houses have been continuously occupied since the community was first constructed.

References

External links

The Bolwoningen By Dries Kreijkamp
An article in iGNANT Magazine by Paula Lou Riebschläger.
Suburban Balls
An article in Uncube Magazine by Anneke Bokern
Construction of special Spherical houses (1984)
A Youtube video published by Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld & Geluid {{coord, 51.7297, 5.3066, format=dms, type:landmark_region:NL, display=title Architecture in the Netherlands 's-Hertogenbosch Buildings and structures in 's-Hertogenbosch Visionary environments