Description

The residences at Brouwersgracht and L.A. Rieshuis are located close to one another in the centre of Amsterdam. They belong to the same closed block of buildings.

The building on Brouwersgracht contains seven compact urban apartments and a studio. Each floor comprises two apartments – with different floor plans – reached via a staircase linked to the 4 m-high entrance hall. The kitchen and bathrooms are arranged so that the remainder of the space is as open as possible, much like a loft apartment. The top floor of the building contains a penthouse with a large roof garden. The ground floor contains ateliers.

The particular challenge of the design for Brouwersgracht was to sensitively insert the new façades into the existing historical structure of the inner-city canal houses where the existing plots are both narrow and high. The result is an 11 m-wide façade divided into two sections, one lower and wider, the other tall and narrow. The wider section, whose façade tilts slightly forwards, employs a combination of large sliding windows and timber screens to create outdoor spaces in the form of small French balconies. The right-hand section of the façade with its more regular arrangement of windows and characteristic brick cladding has a slender, elegant appearance.

In the Vinkenstraat, mecanoo architecten designed seven compact apartments with lift access. Together with a communal space on the ground floor, this forms the L.A. Rieshuis, a communal housing project for elderly homosexuals initiated by the L.A. Ries Foundation. The flats are designed for the needs of the elderly and look out over the courtyard garden and the adjacent nursing home. Each floor has a spacious, communal balcony. The even treatment of the façade emphasises the cohesiveness of the entire complex and is delineated only by a staggered arrangement of windows, which provide a different quality of light in each of the individual flats. The expressive brickwork of the street façade is contrasted with Western Red Cedar to the rear, where the slender steel balconies are located. Arranged alternately offset to one another, they maximise the available light and facilitate communication among the residents.

A communal space known as the “garden house”, designed by the artist Marcel Kronenburg, dominates the ground floor of the building. Enclosed in corrugated plastic sheeting and floored with artificial turf, it allows the residents direct access to the nursing home next door. Via this entrance, the residents, who otherwise live independently, can make use of services provided by the nursing home as required.

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Originally published in: Eckhard Feddersen, Insa Lüdtke, Living for the Elderly: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2011.