House without Quality


House without Quality, front view, M.© 2020

House without Quality is located in the new-town-capital Lelystad, in the {artificially} built Provence Flevoland, The Netherlands. It’s located a few steps away from the train-station, in the partly-ravaged-city-centre, close to the Orange city theatre designed by a famous architecture studio. This project for a House without Quality is established in two phases.

The first phase is a partly destruction of old-new-town-city-tissue. In this case a concrete parking-deck with building volumes aside of it. While a few buildings are still in use, it wasn’t possible to destroy the complete structure, so a mediating solution had to be found; to create a workable Ruin.

The parking deck and buildings in 2010, Erasing Non-Places, Marcel Moonen ©

The second phase was all about finding a cheap-ass-possible solution to cover the still functioning building ruins. A solution was found in plywood plates. These cheap plates are stacked as blocks to cover the “Open Ruin”, making it all watertight again.

Most wooden plates get wet, and turn grey because of rain, a common issue in the Netherlands. Nevertheless a few wooden plates under the overhanging roof are kept dry. The warm color, in contrast to the grey wood, both with a beautiful ingrained texture, give an almost Travertine feeling to the whole.

House without Quality (left) functional water drainage (right) Gargoyle, corner roof detail, M.© 2020

Construction workers were given a free brief for the detailing of the roof. No construction drawings were used in the realization of this House without Quality. There were just two parameters; make it watertight and do it as quick as possible. Aesthetic mistakes were not possible, making it all a very cheap and easy endeavor, with the purest outcome possible.

Wood disguised as stone, House without Quality, M.© 2020

The house has maintained a function as storage space, for the time being. It has no public entrance anymore though, cause its function as a shop disappeared. An ornamental door was created as a placeholder. A Gargoyle at the corner of the roof spits water on the ground, on days of heavy rain. An improvised detail made by one of the construction guys.


Grandmother and child walking by the ornamental door, a spot of water on the ground from the Gargoyle, House without Quality, M.© 2020

Meditative Space, House without Quality, M. © 2020,  Pigeon on the roof, House without Quality, M.© 2020

“This project, my first built statement, has become a landmark, a scar in the actual tissue of the tradition of the modernist architect, no excitement, artificial fabricage of corrosive effects can not top the reality of a times monument rising in situ.”
- The Architect.

House without Quality [2018–2020] © M. Production [Educating Creativity] All links are integrated in the text. Images cannot be copied without permission. Published 01.2020 Triple-A Society