Description

Urban context

Amsterdam has long since been built up all the way to the city limits. The
strategy for creating new living space being pursued is to build inward to
increase density. Municipal conversion sites offer welcome potential for new use
to that end. The locations of such areas are not always so simple, however. Het
Kasteel was developed right next to the municipal switchyard, and hence it is
exposed to constant noise pollution. The complex sits in a depression surrounded
by water and consists of a tower forty-five meters tall sitting on a U-shaped
courtyard structure that faces inward.

Ground-floor zone

The structure surrounds a protected courtyard that is the project’s center. The
inner courtyard is reached via a pedestrian bridge and invites social contact.
Maintaining a warm materiality and completely lined in wood, all the apartments
are accessed via this common center. The maisonette units below also have a
second entrance on the level of the garage that occupies the entire floor below.
This spacious parking garage looks like a lobby. Its walls have wood paneling,
and large openings in the ceiling provide natural light and ventilation on this
level. Exploiting the natural terrain, this semi-basement too has a facade like
the residential floors.

Building structure

The apartment building generates a great variety of different apartment types,
but all occupy the full depth of the building. The U-shaped basis is composed
primarily of two- to four-story maisonettes that resemble row houses. The upper
units are accessed via a gallery. The ends of the building and the tower have
full-floor apartments. Nearly all the units have a private open space in the
form of loggias and terraces. The continuous layers of terraces and galleries
define myriad transitional spaces between inside and outside. The central
stairwells are surrounded by colored glass, and at night they provide light for
the courtyard.

Facade

The building has two completely different facades. Whereas the inner facade is
defined by the various threshold spaces between the courtyard and the private
apartments, the outer, homogeneous double facade unites the complex into a
coherent large form that grows out of the concrete semi-basement. Large-format
panes of glass the full height of the floor shield the apartments against noise
pollution from the neighboring railroad line. Folding glass elements enable
residents to control natural ventilation individually. A thermal skin placed at
a distance forms the inner layer of the facade. The doubling of the facades
results in a wood-paneled interstice sixty centimeters deep that sets up
additional spatial connections between the units. Indentations of the inner
facade also produce deep, surrounded loggias.

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Originally published in: Ulrike Wietzorrek, Housing+: On Thresholds, Transitions, and Transparencies, Birkhäuser, 2014.