Description

Urban context

Geuzenveld is a district of Amsterdam within the Western Garden Cities, where
since the 1950s stereotypical slab apartments have been built en masse under the
sign of postwar functionalism. As part of the improvement of this area, which is
distinguished by a high percentage of green space, unattractive existing
buildings are being replaced by new ones. The Parkrand Building represents one
building block in that development. A large-scale, solitary building complex
replaced three L-shaped residential buildings on the edge of a small
neighborhood park with a compact block that meanders three-dimensionally, with a
length of 135 meters and both height and depth of 34 meters. The large volume
occupies the edge of the park like a manor house, while also acting as a filter
between urban and green space.

Ground-floor zone

A spacious asphalt driveway leads to the unassuming-looking entrance to Dr. H.
Colijnstraat. From there stretches a long atrium, open above, which functions as
the central distributor, connecting the street and park sides and distributing
pedestrians to the entrances of the ground floor apartments and to the building
entrances of the residential towers. Open stairways lead up to a semipublic base
plateau on which three collective “open living spaces” have been designed.
Oversized flowerpots, hanging lamps, and “facade wallpaper” of bricks with
varied surface structures create the desired surreal-looking atmosphere in these
communal open spaces overlooking the park.

Building structure

This three-dimensional spatial structure can be read as a large, twelve-story
volume from which giant “holes” have been cut but also as an ensemble of five
towers that have been connected by continuous floors on the two bottom and two
top floors. In addition to 30 public housing units, the meandering figure
contains 193 rental units of 23 different, consistently bright apartment types,
ranging from 87 to 132 square meters. The base of the building has both
apartments and commercial units. The apartments on the two top floors are
designed as maisonettes.

Facade

The ambiguous play of inside and outside is transferred to the facades as well.
The outer sides of the volume are presented as a dark skeleton with large-format
openings with freely projecting glass balconies hung in front of them in a
staggered arrangement. The sides that have been “cut open” have white brick
perforated facades. Thanks to a carefully considered distribution of mass and
void, the towers are shifted in relation to one another so that as many
apartments as possible have views through the large gaps into the adjacent
neighborhood park. The residents of nearby apartment buildings also profit from
this transparency vis-à-vis the park.

---

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