Wanna Live in a Glass Bubble?
Written by Jennifer Heyns
If you’re thinking of building a home and are looking for the cheapest and simplest out-of-this-world design, well, it won’t get any better than this.
Powerhouse designed the Polder 360 as an answer to the question, how can you build a house for less than 140,000 Euros (approximately $185,000) suitable for the Dutch town of Almere? After studying the environment in Almere, Powerhouse realized its only beautiful quality was the expansive Dutch skyline.
The Danish-Dutch firm came up with a round house that contains no walls and only one single window (and what a window it is!) sunken down into the earth.
Honestly, when you think about Big Brother watching, you envision him looking down upon you, but Polder 360 makes me wonder if he isn’t down in the depths of our planet looking up. The house looks entirely like a bulging glass eyeball emerging from the ground. It’s a little creepy and cool at the same time.
In order to keep costs a minimum, Powerhouse dug the house into the ground, allowing the foundation (the dirt and earth) to act as the exterior walls. They eliminated a traditional roof structure and replaced it with one enormous convex glass top. Not only does this tremendously reduce the amount of materials needed, but it also gives the conceptual homeowner incredible views of the day and nighttime skies.
An underground garage tunnel is the only access one would have to enter or exit the bubble house, and the floor plan is somewhat spiral in nature, with curved stairs on either side of the entry.
Although Powerhouse has come up with a very modern and interesting concept for the progressive cheapskate, they designed Polder 360 with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor. They don’t consider this to be a practical home, but the competition they entered deemed it worthy of an Honorable Mention.
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