Amidst the 19th century harbour docks lie the residential districts Borneo and Sporenburg. In the 90s many different housing blocks and individual houses were designed for these two neighbourhoods and by well known architects. On the Ertskade architecture firm Claus en Kaan (currently split up into Felix Claus and KAAN Architecten) designed the floor plans and the exterior of a housing block of 16 identical houses with private patios that form the entrances to the buildings. The facades of the patios were not the work of the original architect and were built of poor quality materials and detailing. HOP was asked by the owners of one these patio homes to completely redesign the patio and to make an extension on the top floor.
HOP made it its mission to create a highly sustainable, durable and beautiful home. Since the owners were already in love with light coloured pine wood, which they had used on their floors, HOP decided to complement this by working with a similar type of wood for all of the exterior: the highly sustainable Accoya wood. Many of HOP’s projects consist of Accoya cladding and/or window frames but never in this quantity. In total, including the wood framework of the interior stairs, approximately 2.2 m3 of Accoya wood was used for this 120m2 house. And since this material is so strongly represented in both the interior and all around the sunny patio of the building, HOP decided to name it the Accoya House.
