Design: dmvA
Principal: Rini van Beek / XfactorAgencies
Team: David Driesen, Tom Verschueren, Thomas Denturck
Location: anywhere/mobile
General contractor: AD&S Thomas Denturck
Constructional engineer: AD&S

Built area: 20 m2
Completion: 2009 
Visuals: dmvA
Photography: Frederik Vercruysse  /dmvA



CONCEPT: MOBILITY

XfactorAgencies needed an office for her work linked up to her house. Having experienced good collaboration with dmvA architects in previous projects, she chose again working with them.

Characteristic for the building plot was the idyllic location nearby a lake surrounded by spruce-firs. Based on an attitude of respect for nature and because of the triangular form of the house, it was decided to build something organic without cutting one tree. The extension should house an office, a bedroom and a sanitary unit. In fact three blobs. When it was presented to the local council to get a building permit, it was immediately rejected. They thought it weird and it did not fit in with their (rigid) building regulations.

Used to working with limitations and blurring these boundaries at the same time, dmvA decided to skirt round these strict building regulations by building a mobile unit, also to be regarded as an art-object.

A journalist of one of the of the leading newspapers in Belgium heard about this and wrote an article about it ‘Art skirts round building regulations’. Next day XfactorAgencies was visited by someone working for the local council and warned not to place the blob near the house, they would not accept it... It was decided to continue and sell the blob afterwards.

AD&S, as a builder, worked 18 months on this project. He started by building a wooden frame on which tricot was tightened. Serving as a base for the polyester.  Again and again it was polished and plastered. The niches were formed by a mould and stacked. The space between the outer polyester skin and the niches were filled up with pur insulation. Inside the niches red LED lights were placed. In the floor two openings were created, covered with satin finished glass, to hide basic white light tubes, all necessary connections for data and a motor to open the nose. Water and electricity are supplied via a connection outside the blob, like a caravan.

This  labour-intensive work resulted in this smooth looking egg, housing all necessary items one could possibly need; bathroom, kitchen, lighting, a bed and several niches to store your stuff. The nose can be opened automatically and functions as a kind of porch.

You could easily use this mobile unit as an office, a guestroom, a reception, a garden-house, or whatever you want to. Sizes are like a big caravan and it can be moved to any place you like.

The Blob is exhibited in the Verbeke Foundation (Kemzeke, Belgium)
www.verbekefoundation.com

Price on request