living in a bubble

architecture LIVING IN A BUBBLE SPHERICAL FORMS IN ARCHITECTURE — A SYMBOL OF ORGANIC PERFECTION — ARE MOSTLY USED FOR FUTURISTIC AND UTOPIAN PROJECTS BUT RARELY FOR DOMESTIC DWELLINGS photography by GIANNI OPRANDI  BALL HOUSES / BOLWONINGEN BY DRIES KREIJKAMP, 1984 IN HERTOGENBOSCH, THE NETHERLANDS An outside-the-box thinker, the Dutch architect, industrial designer, and sculptor Dries Kreijkamp (1937-2014) defended the spherical form as the most natural, organic shape for human dwellings, taking his aesthetic cues from igloos and the round clay huts of African tribes. In 1984, as part of an experimental housing scheme in a suburb of Den Bosch, the Netherlands, he created a canal-side complex of 50 three-story globular homes, dubbed Bolwoningen (“ball houses”), positioned on cylindrical sockets, like golf balls. The white structures feature self-supporting outer walls in cement reinforced by fiberglass. A double bedroom and bathroom are located on the lower floors, while a cylindrical staircase…