Transform a museum into a luxury townhouse

Paul de Ruiter Architects transformed the former museum of Kralingen into a luxury townhouse while retaining the original features to response the needs of the owners.

Architect: Paul de Ruiter Architects
Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands

According to the architects: The client wanted to expand the house. In order to realize this extension the roof and the north facade of the house had to be replaced. We also wanted to improve the incidence of light. Therefore, we designed a stepped north facade by adding a large volume to the ground floor. By doing so we created a broad terrace on both the first and second floor, and we constructed a storey high glass facade on all of the three levels. Trough these partitions we improved the incidence of light considerably.

The expansion gave us the opportunity to set up every part of the house spaciously. On the ground floor we situated a large kitchen which is surrounded by two sitting areas. The living and dining room at the rear side of the townhouse both look out over the garden and are split by a fireplace. We connected the ground floor to the upper floors via a bright staircase. On the first floor the bed- and bathrooms can be found. We positioned the guest room, the office and a lounge with wellness area on the second floor. 

Our starting point was realizing a house in which the owners could live pleasantly without using lots of energy. The installation engineering became one of the most challenging parts of this renovation. We combined four independent energy sources to regulate the indoor climate. We managed to implement wall and ceiling activation to heat the house with a temperature as low as possible, and to cool with a temperature as high as possible, which saves energy, together with a heat pump, underground storage of hot and cold air flows, and two fireplaces. One of these fireplaces is connected directly to the wall and ceiling activation system.

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