Tagged: wood

Block's little Block, a tiny houseboat in a green environment with forest, water, shrubs, reeds, grass and geese

A Tiny Houseboat: Blok’s Blokje

About a year ago I designed Blok’s Block, a kind of tiny house XL. A compact home for adventurous urbanites, to be placed on roofs of tall buildings. That Blok was recently joined by a Blokje, a little Blok, a design for a tiny houseboat. One of the reactions I received on the Block: it is not really a tiny house. There seems to be an unofficial upper limit of 50 square meters for this. Although the Block is relatively compact, it still has a floor space of 65 square meters. Would a smaller variant be possible that does fit… Read More

A map of the inner city of Rotterdam, The Netherlands and surrounding neighbourhoods, made of digital scrapwood, plywood and chipboard

Scrapwood Cities: Groningen and Rotterdam

Mid-March, in the week that the corona panic began to take hold, my growing apprehension was somewhat tempered by a nice little job for the municipality of Groningen. They had seen my digital scrapwood map of the Netherlands and wondered if there were more maps like that. And more specifically if there was one of the city of Groningen. That would be a perfect gift for a departing alderman. Blocks That map did not exist yet, but could of course be made. The question was: do I make each neighborhood out of a separate piece of virtual scrapwood, as I… Read More

A compact cube-shaped house with a glass and wood facade, located on a high rooftop with a fictional Rotterdam skyline in the background

A Tiny Cube House With a View: Blok’s Block

Looking at the city from a higher point of view can generate some great design ideas. For a cube-shaped tiny house, for example. During the Rotterdam Rooftop Days, in the beginning of June, the Codrico grain silo at Katendrecht once against caught my eye. This national heritage may be the mo st beautiful industrial building in Rotterdam. At its rooftop there is a large cube made of concrete and glass. If the silo complex ever loses its current function, I’d love to make plans for its redevelopment. In the cube one could make a beautiful top end apartment . A… Read More

The digital scrapwood map of Europe, made of 54 different pieces of virtually recycled wood

A map of Europe made of scrapwood

Well in time for the European elections, it’s finished: the map of Europe in digital scrap wood. The third in a series; previously I made a scrap wood map of the Netherlands and the world. 54 countries Making this map was a bit more difficult than the previous two. Instead of 12 provinces or seven continents, we are dealing with 54 different countries big and small here. And for each of them I have searched for a separate piece of wood. Virtual wood, by the way, let there be no misunderstanding about it. Geopolitics When making a map of Europe,… Read More

world map made of scrapwood, old planks, plywood and othe recycled material

The Scrapwood World Map

The scrapwood map the the provinces of the Netherlands was the most popular item in my Dutch webshop in 2018. That does not mean that the map is decorating walls in hundreds of living rooms, but it is still a modest success for this piece of virtual recycling. The World After this achievement, I just had to make a world map in scrapwood as well and here it is… Just like the map of the Netherlands it was rendered in 3ds Max using digital scaffolding, plywood, planks, slats, floorboards and rusty nails. The colors and textures were chosen quite randomly.… Read More

Artist impression of a fictional Icelandic cafe, warm and cosy inside, with paintified landscape photo's on the wall, beer on the bar and the Icelandic flag on the tables, and with a snowy landscape outside

Virtual Iceland – Cafe with a View

Iceland, the land of ice and fire, of volcanoes and glaciers, fjords and lakes, hot baths and boiling mud pools. The land of four seasons in one day, where the sun, the wind and the clouds continuously provide a spectacular light show. The land where nature is the boss and where you are sometimes get stuck for a day because a ford is not so fordable for a while. The land on the edge of the world; and perhaps the most beautiful place on the entire planet. I was in Iceland in the summers of 2005 and 2008, the winters… Read More