Tour Open Park Villa in the Netherlands

(Image credit: Tim Van de Velde)

Open Park Villa sits in a leafy, yet unusual plot. Located in the Dutch region of Limburg, the home occupies what used to be military land, which has now been repurposed for housing and parkland. The resulting wooded environment is a green oasis that makes an ideal setting for peaceful living close to nature – something its architects, Amsterdam-based studio i29, made the most of with their design, which opens up towards the outdoors.

Open Park Villa: a minimalist, green oasis

The architecture team opted for a clean, minimalist architecture composition made up from a series of five, simple, orthogonal volumes. These, in turn, have been opened up internally, so that the verdant surrounds can seep in at every turn, bringing the residents at one with the greenery throughout the interior.

Level changes, large openings and strategically placed seating areas are orchestrated inside, so that the users can appreciate their enviable green setting while spending time in their home.

The five 'pavilions' that make up the property interlock smartly through both open air and enclosed connections, pathways and corridors. This arrangement helps form terraces and courtyards which dot the floorplan.

Timber cladding and details – such as the canopies' clip bamboo structure – add warmth and invite nature indoors. Meanwhile, customised furniture and built-in elements ensure everything feels streamlined and of its place.

Indoors and outdoors have been gently coordinated too, as the architects write: 'The garden design complements the carefully crafted outdoor space, tailored to the villa's volume and façade openings, completing a harmonious interplay of architecture, interior, and landscape.'

The studio applied here the same principles it adopts in much of its work – working with a certain frugality in material use and a refreshing, nature-inspired minimalism. Another recent design by i29, Câpsula, a series of tiny homes, champions 'living large with less' – and it feels the same values have been applied to Open Park Villa too.

i29.nl

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).