Kazemat Koningsweg Recasts a Military Site as a Subtle Refuge
Kazemat Koningsweg sets a quiet tone on the Veluwe in the Netherlands, where JCR Architecten crafts a hideout that recedes into the land. The small holiday house occupies a former military compound now shared by housing, workplaces, and eleven compact retreats, and it meets the brief with angular restraint and a camouflaged stance. Sunken into the ground, it reads like a bunker from afar yet opens to treetop views and light within.
The path dips, the ground swells, and the roofline vanishes into scrub and grasses. Then a hard edge flashes: a mirrored plane catches sky, trees, and your moving silhouette.
This is a compact hideout on the Veluwe by JCR Architecten, set within a former military compound now hosting housing, workplaces, and small holiday homes. Context guides every move, from its sunken posture to a green roof that reads as uninterrupted terrain and foregrounds the animals that wander through.
Sink Into Terrain
Approach begins at a metal door set low in the berm. You step down until waist height, trading horizon for earth and root while the roof merges with the meadow above. The volume digs in rather than stands up, a deliberate retreat that blunts wind and glare and quiets the threshold. Angular faces hold their line, bunker-like, yet the sequence softens once you enter.
Mirror Meets Meadow
A sharply defined mirrored window turns concealment into reflection. It folds the site back onto the facade, hiding the room behind by broadcasting what’s in front. Read one way, the element camouflages the embedded mass; read another, it declares the cut in the ground with crisp precision. The landscape seems to continue across glass, and that visual continuity steadies the low profile.
Treetop Focus
Inside, the room opens and clears under a sloping hood that directs the eye up and out. Sightlines skim over the ground plane and catch the treetops, pulling distance and light into a tight footprint. Heavy columns carry the load with an unadorned stance, while a refined curtain wall tempers the weight and thins the edge between interior and clearing. It’s spare, not bare, and every view lands with intent.
Built With Grit
Cast-in-place concrete anchors the floor and walls with a cool, dense texture. Sturdy wood warms touchpoints and softens the bunker note without masking the structure’s frank attitude. The junctions read clean; nothing fussy, nothing overworked, just a direct assembly that suits a folly designed to disappear. That clarity keeps the small plan legible and leaves room for the rhythms outside.
Roof as Habitat
Above, the building’s surface lifts to let meadow flora reclaim the top. The green roof isn’t garnish; it restores continuity so deer, foxes, and birds move close without interruption. A sloping column threads through the vegetation and doubles as a roosting and nesting perch (a quiet accommodation for birds and bats). The result gives the roof a job beyond insulation, turning camouflage into habitat.
The light shifts, the mirror dims, and the volume recedes again. Ground, roof, and view realign, and the house waits in its shallow hold. Quiet purpose, built into the land.
Photography by Sebastian van Damme
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