Office and residence · The Hague · 2022

A terraced house as office and home

The conversion of a traditional Dutch terraced house to a double function: offices on the lower floors, an apartment above. Two hundred and fifty square metres, high ceilings, a coffered ceiling, moulded door frames — the task was to lose none of it.

The brief

A terraced house was not built as an office and cannot become one without losing what makes it worth being in. The two functions had to sit one above the other, sharing a staircase but not a character.

The answer

On the office floors the fit-out is light and reversible. Glass console tables, a glass display case, white storage runs — nothing that covers a wall or a ceiling. The historic detail carries the character.

The meeting room opens into the adjoining space through a folding partition: two rooms on an ordinary day, one long table for a larger meeting. There is no dropped ceiling, so lighting follows the existing planes — a suspended linear fitting over the table, recessed points for the rest.

On the residential floor the register changes. Warm sand tones, textiles, soft surfaces; the bathroom took a rooflight, because in a terraced-house section there is no side light to be had.

Art, not decoration

Three layers of art carry the identity of the house, and all three are Hungarian.

Large archive maps printed on canvas hang on the walls — old survey sheets of The Hague and Rotterdam — with Budapest buildings alongside them. A Hungarian office in the Netherlands: the pictures say what the façade cannot.

A glass work by Zoltán Krizsán sits in the kitchen window. Not applied decoration but designed into the upper light of the opening, where the afternoon sun comes through it.

In the bedroom, a silk painting by Rita Müller hangs above the bed in a concealed-lit frame. A ginkgo motif in green and blue — the one strong colour on the residential floor.

Data

Location: The Hague, Netherlands
Year: 2022
Type: Terraced house converted to office and residence
Area: 250 m²
Glass work: Zoltán Krizsán
Silk painting: Rita Müller
Status: Completed

Office floors

The long meeting table seen towards the open folding partition, the view carrying through into the adjoining room — Open: the partition folded away, the two rooms reading as one long space.

A work room with two desks pushed together, white pedestals, a suspended linear fitting, and a canvas print of a Budapest building on the wall — A work room: two desks pushed together, pedestals doubling as seats, a Budapest building on the wall.

Render of the director’s room: coffered ceiling, moulded double doors, a desk in front of the tall windows, armchairs and small tables — The design view: the coffered ceiling and the moulded frames stay clear; the furniture pulls into the middle of the floor.

Residential floor

Living room with a dark sofa, two grey armchairs, a wall-mounted television and an arc lamp — The living room on the residential floor: soft surfaces, a dark seating group, a Budapest building photograph on the wall.

Kitchen with a stained-glass panel designed into the upper light of the window, a dining table and framed photographs below — A glass work by Zoltán Krizsán in the upper light of the window — where the afternoon sun comes through.

Bathroom with a rooflight, a bath and shower screen, mosaic tiling and two counter-top basins — The bathroom took a rooflight: in a terraced-house section there is no side light to be had.

Bedroom with a green-and-blue ginkgo silk painting above the bed in a concealed-lit frame — Rita Müller’s ginkgo silk painting in a concealed-lit frame — the one strong colour on the residential floor.

Photography: Ren Design · the director’s room is a design render

Ren Design is a Budapest interior architecture studio with work in Europe, the Gulf and South America. On this project the studio designed the whole interior of the terraced house in The Hague — office and apartment alike — from concept to the furniture schedule.