The houses on Erasmuslaan, Utrecht, simplify some of
the principles that Rietveld first developed in the Schroder
Huis. The plans are based on a one-metre module and a
structural system that allows the free subdivision of the
open space. On the ground floor, space can be adjusted
and subdivided by means of folding concertina walls,
which are guided on floor and ceiling tracks. The upper
storeys are divided more conventionally by partition walls,
whose positions follow the underlying grid, with all rooms
separately accessible off the vertical circulation core.
In each of the four houses, staircase, kitchen and bathroom
are grouped together and are placed to one side of
the space of each living unit. On the ground floor, the walls
enclosing this core are the only fixed elements in plan. The
concertina walls divide or open up the remaining space. If
these wall panels are pushed to one side against the fixed
wall, the openness of the large space (11 metres in length
and between 4 and 7 metres in width] emerges to its full
extent. If pulled out, the panels divide the space into up to
three smaller spaces of 15m2, 20m2 and 24m2 (though it
should be noted that one of these ‘rooms’ does not have
its own access from the central core, thus potentially limiting
its usage).
Unlike Mies van der Rohe’s Weifienhofsiedlung project,
the facade is not interrupted with structural elements,
nor are there any loadbearing columns in the centre of the
space. At Erasmuslaan, the crosswalls are a double skin
of loadbearing brick which support I-beams that span the
width of the each house. In theory, therefore, each of the
internal walls could be placed somewhere else or could
be removed altogether.
This structural principle enables a continuous band of
steel framed windows on the facade. Yet, in order to provide
possible connection points for the establishment of
internal partition walls, slightly wider window profiles are
placed at two-metre intervals.