5 places you probably didn't know people actually lived in
Antje Binder / kbmJune 4, 2016
A typical house with four walls? For some people, that's boring. These unusual locations - including a cement factory - actually serve as homes, but would you want to live in them?
Image: RICARDO BOFILL TALLER DE ARQUITECTURA
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5 places you probably didn't know people actually lived in
A typical house with four walls? For some people, that's boring. These unusual locations - including a cement factory - actually serve as homes, but would you want to live in them?
Image: Carlo Carossio
Cement factory
"La fábrica" is what Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill calls his villa, which he created in a run-down cement factory. For over 30 years, he has lived there with his wife and son, who is also named Ricardo Bofill. Measuring over 500 square meters (well over 5,000 square feet), the space includes several offices, a library, a showroom and multiple living rooms.
Image: RICARDO BOFILL TALLER DE ARQUITECTURA
Bunker
During World War II, Hamburg built more air raid bunkers than any other city in Germany. There were over 1,000 when the war ended. Since bunkers are hard to tear down, a number of architecture firms subsequently worked on repurposing the structures - which is not an easy task, considering that the walls are often over one meter (3.2 feet) thick.
Image: Imago/ecomedia/R. Fishman
Cistern
Water used to be stored in this cistern on the Canary Island of Lanzarote off the coast of Spain. But when the residents of the small village of Los Valles got running water, the cistern was forgotten. It wasn't until just a few years ago that a local couple, Oda and Yayo Fontes de Leon, rediscovered it and turned it into a comfortable apartment.
Image: Rural Villas
Airplane hangar
The bricks are just a façade. This house in the northern German town of Uetze was built in a converted airplane hangar. It can get a bit loud when it rains on the corrugated metal roof, but otherwise it's quite comfortable in the 140-square-meter home. When the British military pulled out of the region in the mid-1990s, a number of the hangars they left behind were repurposed.
Image: Glenn Garriock
Church
What does a church do when it runs out of money? It rents its building. In London, that can be particularly lucrative. The second floor of the Westbourne Grove Church in the posh neighborhood of Notting Hill has been converted into luxury apartments. While that may not be orthodox, the Baptist congregation below was happy about the financial blessing.
Image: Carlo Carossio
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It's part cathedral, part cement block and part Garden of Eden. No matter how you look at it, Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill's residence is impressive. The unusual home is located just outside of Barcelona, where the star architect already built the airport and the famous W Hotel at the city beach, known for its distinctive silhouette.
Now aged 76, Bofill has designed more than 1,000 buildings all over the world - but perhaps the most interesting of them is his very own house.
It was back in the 1970s that Bofill discovered the old cement factory from the 19th century. He bought the rundown facility, tore out most of its 30 silos and spent two years turning the remaining eight into a spacious villa.
In the thick cement walls, Bofill put long, narrow windows that are reminiscent of the Catalonian Gothic style with their round arches. He turned the factory's large central building into a hall with 13-meter-high ceilings, which he uses for receptions, parties and seminars. Another spacious hall is used as a dining room. The heart of the building is the "sala cubica," a cube-shaped room that stretched over two floors.
Bofill chose to leave the factory's visible chimney intact - it can be seen from all over Barcelona.
Some other remains of the original cement factory have also been left and stand in the garden like huge sculptures. There, nature has reclaimed the once industrialized space. Vines crawl up the facades, contrasting sharply with the building.
Click through the gallery above for more out-of-the-ordinary homes.
