3268 Buijtenbed, 2012

Buijtenkeuken by Elmo Vermijs
: Ralph Kδmena

As part of Werkplaats Buijtenland by designer Ester van de Wiel i.c.w. Marnix Tavenier

Werkplaats Buijtenland is a cooperation project with the aim to open up agricultural polderland to a recreational program of activities. Buijtenbed, by Studio Makkink & Bey, is one of the five mobile recreation tools to supplement the area with public functions. 

The installations are placed on farm trailers and equipped with specific functions such as: a kitchen, apple juice and cider brewery or, in the case of Buijtenbed, a guest room. Buijtenbed is basically a mobile home inside its stall, placed on a flat trailer with wide steps at the frontside.

The most well-known example of a portable residence is perhaps the mobile home, or caravan in Dutch. During the summer, a mass of Dutch tourists get their rolling summer lodgings out of the barn, to vacation on a campsite away from home. The mobile home used in Buijtenbed is still parked inside its stalling, 1 single stall for 1 mobile home. This brings more light into the small space and provides an image that is suggestive of model building, where the real world is shrunken down to be individually packed inside a box.

Buijtenbed can be placed at any location where there's something to do or see. It could possibly serve as a research station, or function in a program linked to the rhythm of the seasons and with activities surrounding the local harvesting calendar. In September it was placed next door to the farm of the Vos family where, on request, the daughter of the house would bring a tray of breakfast, walking all the way across the dike to Buijtenbed.