By SALLY McGRANE

HAAKSBERGEN, the Netherlands - From an overhead view, the doughnutshaped Villa Meindersma seems to have landed in the middle of this suburban neighborhood like a spaceship from the distant future. Perhaps that’s only fitting, since its designers intended this unconventional house as a forward-thinking response to the question of how family life can be sustained in the hectic modern world.
“People are afraid of losing the boundaries of family because they’re working all the time,” said Branimir Medic, who designed this 400-square-meter singlefamily house with Pero Puljiz, a partner of his in the Amsterdam firm de Architekten Cie.
Their solution is a different kind of space. Features of traditional homes - multiple floors, separate rooms - are no longer conducive to family life, they contend. The modern house must bring the family more intensely together - when they’re all together, that is. “This moment where you are together is far more important than before, because it happens far less than it used to,” said Mr. Medic .
The house’s owners, Eric-Jan and Katja Meindersma, the parents of Richter, 3, and Sweder, 5, run a glass-and-tableware business in Haaksbergen, a town of about 24,000 in the eastern Netherlands, near the German border. When they approached the architects in 2003 about building a house, Mr. Medic and Mr. Puljiz immediately came up with a plan for a circular dwelling, something they had never done before.
To protect what the designers refer to as the solidarity of the family, their plan called for a slate roof that would extend nearly to the ground to form an impregnable exterior facade. Inside, the kitchen, the dining area, the living room and the television nook would be one continuous space, curving around an outdoor courtyard. And thanks to a glass interior wall shared by all of the rooms, everyone in the family would be together all the time.
The architects presented a mock-up to the Meindersmas. Mr. Meindersma, who travels three days a week for business, within Europe as well as to places like Dubai and Australia, liked it. So did his wife.
“It’s wonderful living here,” she said, standing in the driveway in front of the circle she calls home.
In fact, the circle isn’t whole. There are no doors on the house’s perimeter; instead, a wedge-shaped opening allows access to the courtyard, where the family can enter the house through sliding glass doors.
Has the design affected family dynamics- Mrs. Other than being able to keep track of the children from just about any spot in the house, or converse with people in the dining area while cooking, there appears to be nothing remarkable about a round house, at least not for the adults.
“But children like it very much,” she said. “They come over and say, ‘I would like to live here - it’s like a boat or a spaceship.’”