Why Borneo 12 gives half its plot to an alley
Borneo 12 deliberately builds on only half its plot to make the leftover strip do the work of a frontage. On a five-metre-wide, 16-metre-deep Amsterdam site, MVRDV placed a 2.5-metre-wide house along one side and kept the other side as a private alley. A full-height glass wall turns the narrow home toward that alley, where storage, parking and enclosed rooms also take up space. The move trades a conventional broad façade for a longer, more active edge beside the house. [1] [2]
- The plot is five metres wide and 16 metres deep; the house occupies a 2.5-metre-wide strip, leaving the other half as a private alley. [1] [2]
- The house’s long glass wall faces the alley, while its front and back walls are closed. [1]
- A storage block whose roof provides parking, a closed guest room with bathroom, and one closed volume that widens the two upstairs studios sit in the alley strip. [1] [2]
The plot is five metres wide; the house is half as wide
Those numbers describe different things. The plot measures five by 16 metres; the house itself is only 2.5 metres across. MVRDV says the design uses half the allocated width, while Archiweb describes the resulting built footprint as 40 square metres. The other half is not a second house or a leftover backyard: it becomes the alley that runs beside the home. That distinction explains why the building looks unusually narrow without implying that the original plot was only 2.5 metres wide. [1] [2]
The alley becomes the house’s main frontage
The glass façade runs along the alley, and the front and rear elevations are closed. This changes where the house meets the outdoors: its long side, rather than either narrow end, becomes the principal visual connection. The alley is private, so it does not act like a public street. It gives the house its own open edge inside the plot, bringing exterior space alongside the rooms instead of leaving all the outdoor area behind the building. [1]
Rooms and services occupy the open strip
The alley is not an empty passage. MVRDV describes three elements: a storage block with a sloping roof that provides parking, a closed volume holding a guest room and bathroom, and a second closed volume that adds width locally to the studios on the first and second floors. MVRDV says both closed volumes hang on the glass façade. Archiweb likewise describes stacked boxes placed in the vacant half. These insertions make selected functions wider while closing in part of the exterior space. [1] [2]
The gain is spatial variety, paid for in width and open air
MVRDV presents the arrangement as a way to pursue spaciousness and versatility within a limited envelope. The glass wall and adjacent open strip connect the 2.5-metre-wide interior to a wider space; the inserted rooms give selected functions more width. But the main house remains exceptionally narrow, and the hung volumes that widen selected rooms also close in part of the open strip. Borneo 12’s lesson is specific: giving up half a plot can make sense when that strip can become a daylit edge and a useful extension of the plan. It is a demanding exchange, not free extra space. [1] [2]