Student Housing. Amsterdam

This project for 72 student housing units forms part of a larger urban development plan. That plan envisages the restoration of the original building line around a large-scale Modernist university complex dating from the 1960s.

The ground plan of the units is based on the principle of the smallest possible independent housing unit that still complies with Dutch legislation on housing.

To reduce the disadvantages of access via an outdoor corridor, we devised an access system in which each lift provides access to a relatively small number of units, thereby cutting down the distance from the lift to each unit.

The deeply recessed, staggered windows confer a dynamic, sculptural appearance on the façade to match the ornamentation of the nearby 19th-century buildings in the street. The façade is covered with a simple weathered brick that has been treated with linseed oil paint. This is a deliberate choice to inexpensively transform a specific and local material that was already in use in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century.