Ronddraaiend Huis

Approaching a house as a work of art rather than a home - that is the concept of this cylindrical building. It consists of 12 panels placed on a circular concrete base. Half of the panels consist of curved glass, the others are sealed and partly fitted with round window openings. Visible on the concrete base is the frame to which small steel wheels are attached. With human power, powered by the mechanism of a bicycle, the forty-thousand-pound house can be turned to face the sun. The idea that you can move a house by yourself is at the heart of the design. No one had thought of it before, so artist and engineer Joost Conijn could only pursue his dream by just doing it. The welfare-free plots in Oosterwold became his playground, where he started building and afterwards checked whether the design complied with the applicable rules. This experiment reflects the character of Almere: innovative and daring. The project is a paragon of Conijn's working method, in which he constantly explores the boundary between art and technology, man and machine.