When Marjon Helder and Martin Blankendaal commissioned Chris Collaris to redesign an old, decaying brick home on the waterfront in Amsterdam, Netherlands, the architect decided that starting from scratch—building a new, sustainable home of steel and wax-preserved pine—made more sense than a renovation. “The house was very old and could not be saved,” Collaris says. “[Starting over] gave us aesthetic freedom.”

With a blank slate at his fingertips, the architect set out to create a design that would be as artful as it is practical. “It’s timber over a steel skeleton,” says Collaris, who clad the exterior walls and the sharply pitched roof with the same wax-preserved pine. “This made it sculptural,” he says. “The black finish gives it a slim profile despite the roof’s large overhang.

In combination with the black finish on the walls and the roof, the asymmetrical form of the pitched roof gives the compact house a whimsical appearance. “It also allows for more volume,” Collaris says. High ceilings and an attic mark the interior, which is compact but notably airy.

“The design of the house is based on passive building technology,” says Collaris, who used sandwich panels with high-density insulation to craft the facades and the roof. “And all the window frames have a double seal,” the architect says. In addition, black solar panels blend into the surface of the roof and help to harness energy for the home.

In tribute to the old brick house and its history, Collaris maintained some of the original elements, incorporating them into the new design. “Roof tiles and some of the wood flooring are in the garden, and there’s brick from the old house on one of the walls on the interior,” Collaris says.

It's a tiny home with a striking presence. “The other houses on the street are architecturally diverse,” Collaris says, “But this design is more radical. The asymmetrical roof and the black exterior, they really make it stand out amongst its neighbors.”

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Project Credits:

Design: Chris Collaris Architects / @chriscollaris

Structural Engineer: Vissers & Vissers B.V.

Contractor: Hagoort Bouw B.V.

Interior Stairs and Cabinets: Luc Schoenmakers Interieur/Decorbouw

Photographer: Tim Van de Velde