House Cascade Villa with 29 apartments is located in the new district of Almere, also not at all the old satellite city of Amsterdam - Poort. CROSS architects designed the residential complex as a modern urban villa, although the surroundings of the building are quite suburban: next to the canal bank, and around is the Cascade Park.
The five floors of the land-side building are lowered to just one near the water, allowing views of the canal from the courtyard, the main space of the complex. There are entrances to the apartments and the tower of the elevator unit, so residents in the courtyard meet and communicate, this is a completely "urban" environment such as a small square. At the same time, the courtyard is closed to outsiders and sheathed with "warm" material - wood, that is, it remains a private space.
Outside, the house is bright red, with facades of traditional Groningen clay bricks. Horizontal rows of masonry emphasize the horizontality of the landscaped terraces. The entrance to the courtyard is highlighted with a different material, but not color - red stone.
In terms of the Cascade Villa - a square with a square courtyard in the center; the staircase of the tiers gives it a resemblance to a ziggurat, although the authors themselves compare it with a cascade. The area of apartments varies from 75 to 125 m2, the total area of the building is 4300 m2, the construction took exactly one year.
