After a long restoration, we are proud to present the end result of Superuse co-founder Césare Peeren’s home. A beautiful example of how our cities could evolve, re-using pre-existing housing and local material flows. Starting from the ’90s, thanks to cooperation between the municipality and private owner, the street’s new inhabitants managed to save the whole housing complex. Césare’s house has resulted in an organic assembling of elements and materials from other Superuse ‘s projects realized during the following two decades, implementing flows of re-used materials into the renovation process.
While this portfolio includes a small selection of photographs, you might want to see the extended preview ; the link is also at the end of the page.
The whole housing complex along the east side of the Gerald Scholtenstraat in Rotterdam’s northern part resume today three decades of community efforts. Where inhabitants joined forces to save the heritage value of the street.
The communal approach is also expressed in the collaboration between Césare and his neighbor Hugo; a master of crafts in building and interiors who has been an essential ingredient to complete the restoration, sharing both efforts, knowledge, and investments.
↑ Above image slider: Césare Peeren and Hugo Lammerink during the finishing of the garden’s facade.
“It is made with the waste of the waste of the waste,”
↑ Quote from the interview with Césare Peeren, June 2019.
For example, the garden’s facade’s insulation has been realized upcycling Trespa plates leftover from the other two projects. Initially, the gray panels were office desks dismantled from a bank in Rotterdam around 2009. The material was mainly reused for the DortYart project.
↑ DortYart Art Center | Dordrecht NL | Design by Superuse | Photo © Denis Guzzo
Superused Home’s exterior views
↑ Image slider: the street views of the house.
Respecting the historical aesthetics and local regulations, the house has been maintained in its original look at the street side, while it has been reinterpreted at the garden’s side.
With the same approach, the roof has been regenerated by re-using the old shingles by composing the house’s number ’98’ in its front facade.
To complete the rest of the surface, Césare used insulating panels that were left overs or slightly damaged, saving around 2/3 on the normal retail price. The different colours creates a patchwork that includes semi-transparent panels to increase the amount of light coming into the attic.
↑↓ Single images: details of the Superused Home’s roof ↑↓
Superused Home is intended to be able to host many people within a community-based living style. On the third floor, the attic is designed as an open space living unit, connected by a long stair to the ground floor.
Being the building divided into two families, both restoration process and design have been implemented commonly. Next to the aesthetics approach, the larger insulation layer widely improves the climactic action.
↑↓ Selected vertical views of the garden’s side off the Superused home © Denis Guzzo 2020 ↑↓
↑↓ Selected vertical views of the garden’s side off the Superused home © Denis Guzzo 2020 ↑↓
↑ Image slider: Superused Home from the back garden © Denis Guzzo 2020
↓ Single image: layered functions, a night view from the back garden © Denis Guzzo 2020
# GROUND FLOOR
↑ Image Slider: ground floor of the Superused Home.
↑↓ Single images: a huge vertical door illuminates both kitchen and office floors: daylight has been amplified by using a mirroring metal sheet on one side. During summer the reflecting curtain provides extra isolation from the heat of the sun.
↓↑ Single images: the kitchen and the office sharing the garden’s view.
Above Image Slider: ground floor of the Superused Home during nocturnal good vibes.
# FIRST FLOOR
↑ Image slider: the first floor of the Superused Home.
↓ Single image: selected night view of the office area on the first floor.
# SECOND FLOOR
↑ Image slider: views and details of the main bathroom.
LOW-TECH
LIGHT SOLUTIONS
A shatterproof glass window repurposed as an integral part of the laundry room’s floor: definitely the scariest but also most fascinating detail of the house. It allows most of the light gained by the upper windows to illuminate the lower floors, with a focus on the office’s table on the first floor, positioned to overview the huge back door and the garden.
↑ Image slider: details of the laundry’s floor with the integrated lighting solution.
2nd FLOOR: THE RED ROOM
↑ Single image: the red room facing the back garden on the second floor.
↓ Image slider: details of the red room.
2nd FLOOR: THE BLUE ROOM
↑ Image slider: the blue room on the street’s side on the second floor.
↓ Single image: a detail of the blue room revealing Supersue’s approach to industrial waste.
# THIRD FLOOR
THE BALCONY
- 97 % RENEWABLE ENERGY 97%
Combining older-generation solar panels with new ones, energy is harvested from the roof and the balcony installations.
By choosing low-consumption home appliances, the attic’s living unit can run almost entirely driven by solar energy and passive climatic solutions.
The solar panel on the new structure are harvesting sunlight but at the same time are shading the interiors and protect the door and windows from direct rain.
RAIN WATER
COLLECTION
Rainwater is a precious resource in terms of food production and house holding. The house is provided with three collecting silos: one on the attic’s balcony and two in the garden.
For the happiness of the vegetables and herbs grown on the balcony, a huge PCV tube section was fitted under a bench, collecting the water from the roof.
Further water collection is diverted to the garden’s container.
↑ Image slider: the attic’s balcony with the summer’s cultivation of vegetables and herbs.
..work in progress:
The attic’s living unit is still being finished, stay tuned for future updates!
