Swinging Art House

A house with walls of straw bales in wooden caissons and an expansive, swinging floor plan. A meadow strip winds up from the garden to a treehouse situated above a green roof, offering a view over fields of biodynamic farm Vliervelden, to which the house belongs. The ground-floor kitchen flows into a greenhouse and wild garden, where you descend to a sheltered spot by the reed-lined ditch. A spiral staircase then gives access back to the treehouse via the green roof. The connection with the environment is an essential feature of the design, which can be seen in the organic transition from the ground level to the green roof. The wood was mostly harvested by Jos Bregman himself. He provided beams, columns and planks with an id-chip, connected to a database, in which the origin is recorded. As an artist, Bregman has a deep respect for wood. He harvests it with reverence, gives each tree a name and in his treatments of it, brings to life all its qualities. He considers the applied wood in Swinging Art House as an imploded forest, part of his oeuvre as an artist.