Blok 14, IJburg, Amsterdam • 2000 - 2008
62 apartments and 400 m2 commercial space
Client: IJ-Delta Ontwikkeling, Amsterdam

has been nominated for the ‘Gouden A.A.P.’ (Amsterdam Architecture Prize 2009)

The starting point of the 'Stedenbouwkundig Plan Haveneiland en Rietlanden West' (Urban Development Plan for Haveneiland en Rietlanden West) was a city plan in the form of a grid, consisting of streets and closed blocks. Block 14 lies at a unique location within the Haveneiland grid. Due to the slight change of angle of the Binnengracht and the Boulevard Noord, the block is trapeziform. Taking into account the scant depth and the exceptionally positive conditions along the edges, it was logical to situate as many houses as possible along the banks and to allocate maximum openness to the inner area. As the consequence, the houses profit fully from their situation on the IJ Water and also have a direct relationship with the more sheltered, semi-public inner area. It is essential that public routes traverse the block. The court is connected to the quay via a spacious platform stairway. The difference in height at the site offers the possibility of generating extraordinary transitions between public and private  areas in the form of a mezzanine floor or so-called ‘Amsterdam stoop’.
In addition to single-family dwellings with access to gardens, an unusual type of house has been introduced: the ‘Zwebo’, which is an abbreviation of the Dutch for ‘floating single-family upstairs apartment’. An important aspect is the staggering of the various construction components and the ‘capriciousness’ of construction heights that is required in order to balance the austere large-scale ‘Solids’ in the urban development plan. The result is a composition of objects in which the transition between the different sections is explicitly designed. In this composition, the primacy of the main volume is the prevailing feature. The façade impression is one of a closed block in which the urban dwellings, like bricks, are subtly legible.