Rotterdam Cube Houses become new Stayokay hostel
Rotterdam’s Cube Houses, an iconic building designed in 1984 by Dutch architect Piet Blom, has been renewed and transformed into a new Stayokay hostel. The building consists in 38 small cubes and two bigger ones all attached to each other.
The expressive and colorful cube-shaped houses on concrete pillars are located right in the heart of the city, near the ‘Old Harbour’. Spending the night in a tilted cube is quite a unique experience. In addition to the 49 spacious rooms, Stayokay Rotterdam also has a restaurant, bar and two rooms for meetings and workshops. The interior concept of Dutch designer Edward van Vliet (SEVV) was used as a starting point. Kees van Lamoen and Personal Architecture were the rebuilding architects. More images, after the break.
PS: In the last Mark Magazine there’s an article with interviews to people who have lived in remarkable buildings, and the cube house was included.
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8 comments »
What ever it dose not look good and feel right
To clarify, the hostel is only a small part of the larger cube residences.
I am currently in Rotterdam attending an architecture summer school program. Just went into the ‘museum’ cube. Detailing is horible. Customizable furniture is uncomfortable, space is wasted, and I got a very intense feeling of motion sickness while being inside.
The stairs are designed at ridiculous proportions as well.
I think this is a quite remarkable structure. It is located on top of a 8 or 10 lane road but still manages to make a pretty good public space beneath the units that themselves create varied and very interesting spaces both below and above.
Brilliant idea to convert it to a hotel.. I will definitely spend a night there on my next trip to Rot (and let’s face it you will get sick of living there permanently) but I love the sillyness, 80′ness and above all the Rotterdamness of the project…
this is not Amsterdam but Rotterdam.
It’s near the ‘Willem de Kooning’ (Academy of Arts).
Great project!
Just want to stay there one night or something…
Looks fine to me!
This is amazing!! I’d definitely want to stay here when I visit Rotterdam
when i visited a year or so ago, i wondered about the relevance of a building like this when everyone seems to be looking for the “standard elements” of private housing: granite, open plan kitchen/dining/living, acres of pristine wall space for the largest tvs available…
i am very excited to find out that it has become a hostel. fantastic. thanks for the heads-up arch daily! back to rotterdam to stay at Piet Blom’s!
The interior does not relate to the exterior of the building AT ALL, the exterior being, obviously, the one thing that gives this building its unique personality, along with its special geometry, which is completely ignored in the renovation project.
The interior looks like a rather pedestrian café-resturant, even the color palette seems to go against the building’s character, and those peach, mauve colors are just awful!!! The rooms could have employed the unique space configuration in a more original way, I think.
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