Client masterplan Architects apartment blocks Architects canal houses JAVA ISLAND DRO Amsterdam (Amsterdam’s planning department) Cruz & Ortiz Gerard Kruunenberg Harbour renovation project Kees Christiaanse Marlies Rohmer Developers and housing corporations Rudy Uytenhaak René van Zuuk 1991-2000 SFB/BPF-bouw Sjoerd Soeters Cobien Heuff Coöperatief Bouwbedrijf Moes Karelse en Van der Meer Jos van Eldonk Text by Sjoerd Soeters Woningbouwvereniging Het Oosten Baneke Van der Hoeven Dana Ponec Woningbouwvereniging ACOB Cees Nagelkerke Martine de Maeseneer Java Island is a narrow peninsula in the Jo Crepain Art Zaaijer Eastern Harbour District of Amsterdam that Masterplanner AWG John Bosch Sjoerd Soeters Geurst & Schulze was built in 1900 for the mooring of large ocean-going ships. When the port activities Supervision shifted westwards, this harbour became Sjoerd Soeters (masterplanner) Ton Schaap (Amsterdam’s planning department) gradually redundant and Amsterdam decided Jan de Waal (Amsterdam’s housing department) to transform the Eastern Harbour District into a residential area. Java Island is uniquely located right next to the old city centre. The plan by Sjoerd Soeters aims to create an ideal residential environment with the city’s historic inner cordon of canals as a model and consists of a series of relatively small apartment build- ings, designed by different architects. The buildings along the quays are of a size that relates to the large dimensions of the island and the water yet keeps the human scale in mind. The buildings are 27 meters wide and each is divided into five bays of 5.4 me- ters. Within this structure, and supervised by Sjoerd Soeters, the different architects produced a variety of dwelling types. The island was partitioned by creating four lat- eral, relatively narrow, canals at which in- dividual canal houses were built. Behind the canal houses are palazzi: small apartment blocks that address public inner courtyards which each have a different design.

- 1 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten 1 Brantasgracht 2 Javakade 3 Javakade 4 Javakade 5 Vanuit Tosarituin 6 Kratontuin richting Imogrituin

11  

6 

5  1 10  9  8  7  

4 3 2 

7 Bogortuin 8 Seranggracht 9 Taman Sapituin 10 Java-eiland 11 Java-eiland

- 2 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten - 3 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten - 4 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten - 5 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten - 6 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten - 7 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten - 8 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten - 9 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten History

In the seventeenth century, during the Golden Age of Amsterdam, the inner har- bour waters called “het IJ” were salt and openly connected with the Zuider Zee (Southern Sea). The peninsula Volenwijck opposite the inner city is almost touch- ing feminine Amsterdam, splitting the IJ waters in two wide bays. The waters were vast; many etches and paintings of that time depict a complete fleet of very large ships sailing on the IJ. These images might be a bit exaggerated, the fleet not only boasting national pride by enormous or- ange, white and blue republican flags, but also firing their canons as if in battle. By the end of the nineteenth century, the 2. Amsterdam 1770 3. Amsterdam late 19th century IJ waters were separated from the Zuider Zee to the East and narrowed by adding reclaimed land at the north side. From Amsterdam towards the west coast of Hol- land, much land on both sides of the IJ was gained upon the water. A narrow ca- nal was dug through the dunes, making a direct access possible from the North Sea

1. Hendrick Conrelisz Vroom The Harbour of Amsterdam (1630) 4. The harbour in 1900

- 10 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten to Amsterdam. To bring the cargo to the international railroad system a new set of docks was built on the east side of the old city: the . One of those newly built docks was Java Island, a narrow peninsula of 130 meters wide and 1200 meters long. The quays of the island, fourteen meters wide, were platforms, constructed on piling, to carry the load of the cranes. Between the quays the island was filled with the muddy soil of the harbour. Pictures of that period show 5. Java Island in use, early 20th century 6. Java Island in use, early 20th century both steam and sailing cargo boats moored aside the quays. Rows of cranes are ready to hoist the goods into warehouses or di- rectly onto trains. After de Second World War however, the Eastern Docklands became gradually re- dundant, when the port activities shifted westwards, where more space was avail- able to receive the ever bigger and bigger freighters and sea-going vessels coming in from the West. In the 1970’s, the docklands were left empty. Buildings were invaded by squatters houseboats were moored, caravan communities were cooking on open campfires on the quays, artists found atelier spaces in harbour office buildings, a restaurant occupied the prestigious interiors of a building where emigrants used to have their last minutes farewell with family and friends.

7. Java Island in 1990

- 11 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten 8. Model plan by Amsterdam’s planning department

The first plan Spoorenburg. For the whole area a target tral area between Java Island and KNSM of 100 units per hectare was set. Island; a tramway stop being a signal that The municipality was woken up by a fa- The city’s planning department, DRO, you are within the city area of Amsterdam. mous professor in social geography, Wil- drew up a stedebouwkundig programma From the tram roundabout there is a view lem Heinemeijer, who advised them to van eisen — a program of urban require- north over the IJ waters, and also a wish transform the abandoned docklands into a ments — and produced a model plan. For for a long and framed view in the direction residential area. At first a big overall plan Java Island, the map showed thoughts of the churches of the old city. Because for the whole IJ region was proposed, but about view lines and building types. The there was no space on the narrow island eventually it was decided that smaller idea was to build two new bridges to the for a wide central road, car traffic had plans, each with their proper character island, so that the island was accessible to be routed via the north quay. Bicycle might be a better idea. The Eastern Dock- from two ends, which was important for traffic was to be routed over a cycle path lands were split up in separate approaches the emergency services. Over the eastern through the sheltered, less windy central for KNSM Island, Java Island and Borneo bridge a tramway gave access to the cen- area. In order to exploit the view over the

- 12 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten IJ to the full, long blocks lined the quays, opers and housing corporations, who could The landscape both on the north and the south side. But also take part in the development of the this might become boring, so there was an urban plan, under the condition that they When we were boating around the island urgent need for change of image: a line of would contribute towards the costs. They in an attempt to catch the genius loci, towers along both quays was suggested, were also asked to give input from their we came to realise that before thinking a linear building between them and then, point of view as developers regarding the about the program of urban requirements, near the other bridge, a more voluminous feasibility of the whole project. there was a strong need to know where we triangular pilot tower, dominating the Three architectural offices were then in- were. When we hoisted ourselves up onto ‘Concorde’ shaped nose of Java Island. vited to draw up a scheme based on this: the edge of the quay, exactly two meters DRO also produced the so called Woonat- Geurst and Schultze, Sjoerd Soeters and above the always controlled water level of las, the Atlas of Living, which described Rudy Uytenhaak. The scheme by Sjoerd the IJ, we came to realise that from the concepts of living. Starting point for this Soeters was chosen to be executed, with quay we could see water all around, but atlas was the observation that the combi- additions from Uytenhaak and the city’s that we couldn’t relate to it. The water nation of building for the housing market planning department. was an abstraction, the feeling of going to and the growing differentiation of loca- feed the ducks, the ultimate criterium for tions and life styles needed new concepts water in a residential environment, was of living: different people, different wish- completely lacking. We needed to address es. This resulted in a list of different types the problem of ‘landscape’ before even of dwellings, in which the focal point was thinking of any housing solutions. the number of occupants and the degree of collectivity or individuality. At this point, DRO contracted four devel-

9-11. Java Island in 1991

- 13 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten In my compact hobby library I have a vol- up with our hand that little village that ume that proved to be useful in under- we see down in the valley. When stand- standing the enigma of the Java Island ing on the edge of a cliff, where the edge landscape. In his book The Visual and is ‘here’ and the water over the edge is Spatial Structure of Landscapes, Tadahiko ‘there’, distance becomes an abstraction Higuchi starts with pointing out how we and is unknown, just the same as we felt experience landscapes from different eye on the quayside of Java. levels. According to Henry Dreyfuss’ ba- sic scheme we look in a flat landscape to the horizon and our ‘normal line of sight standing’ is directed 10 degrees under the horizontal. Higuchi’s interpretation of this line, the angle of depression, is that the point where this line touches ground is more or less decisive for our experience of ‘here’ or ‘there’, nearby- or faraway-ness. The loss of the horizon in hilly landscapes disturbs our experience and shatters the exactitude of our judgment of distance in landscapes: we seem to be able to pick

12. Henry Dreyfuss’basic scheme 13-17. Our experience of ‘here‘ and ‘there‘ by Tadahiko Higuchi

- 14 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten different eye levels can also be found in illustrations of landscapes by another Japanese, Katsushika Hokusai, most fa- mous for his big wave. In The landscape with a hundred bridges, the eye is led over mountainous paths, over and under all these hundred bridges. There is a hallu- cinating play with distances in which a vil- lage, seen under the biggest bridge, seems to be further away than the construction on the small peak over the bridge at the far end of the landscape. 18. Katsushika Hokusai, Landscape with a Hundred Bridges, 1832 European painters as well were very much aware of the importance of a lifted po- sition to see more and deeper into the 20. Gerrit Berckheyde, Golden Bend in the Herengracht, 1685 urban landscape. The Italian painter Cana- letto for instance seems to be painting from a position on the first floor gallery of widths of the plots of land given out by the Doge’s Palace to show the beginning the government in the seventeenth cen- of the Canal Grande and the Canale della tury, even if then already, and also later, Giudecca behind the Punta della Dogana. owners did build on double or triple plots. Similarly, the Dutch painter Gerrit The main rhythm is shown in the differ- Berckheyde took position on a high ladder ence in colour of the neighbouring brick of on the Leidsestraat bridge in Amsterdam stone facades, the difference in the treat- to show us the full glory of the Golden ment of the foot of the building, mostly in Bend in the Herengracht. From a normal natural blue stone, the individual outdoor and fixed position the water would soon access staircase or stoep, the articulation 19. Canaletto, Entrance to the Grand Canal from the Molo, Venice, 1742/1744 be hidden from the eye. Only by moving of the main entrance in white frame and through the city landscape we experience ornamentation, and the gables ending in the wonders that eye level differences the shape of a neck or clock-gable or of An elevated eye level position is the main bring to us. a cornice styled, according to the prefer- condition for seeing deep into and over ences of renaissance, rococo or classical the landscape. Higuchi’s observations The old center of Amsterdam is character- architecture. Within the band of the indi- about the experience of space from a ised by water and quays. The houses lin- vidual elevations a smaller rhythm can be higher point in concave landscapes from ing these quays still show a rhythm of the observed: the breadth of the brickwork

- 15 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten between windows, the widths of the win- cross it. Similarly, the straight quays along dows, the depth of their setting in the the river Amstel, which runs perpendicular brickwork, the proportions and size of the to the canals over a length of a thousand window frames and their depth, the posi- meters, are broken into an undulating tion of the sliding window panels in those landscape with eye level differences of frames, and the position in depth of the more than three and a half meters wher- glass panes. The combination of all these ever another canal meets it. The Amster- different dimensions produces a differ- dam landscape is a hilly one! ent ‘bar code’ for every house front, and the ongoing sequence of these bar codes Because we realised how much the land- makes the entire canal front come alive as scape of the inner city contributes to the a happy family of somewhat different per- experiential value of the living environ- sonalities. ment—and therefore also to its economic With the help of Tadahiko Higuchi, the ex- value —, we proposed to make bridges perience of walking along all these family that introduce eye level differences on faces reveals the real wonder of the inner Java Island. And to get bridges we had to city landscape. The arched bridges over make canals. By doing so, we could break the canals cause eye level differences. the 1000 meters long island in five unequal Between these bridges we find ourselves in sub islands. Was that too much to ask for? a provisionally enclosed space. On top of All the directors of the municipality re- the bridge we see the next valley, includ- lated to building affairs thought so. Plan- ing the water that we followed and which ning, housing, harbour, all departments continues in the same direction while we were fiercely against it, but fortunately the developers, investors and housing corporations that took part in the debate about how to make the island a good place to live, were offering to pay for the extra costs of this: twelve million guilders. It required a complex operation and, for- mally specified, it looked a bit silly too: to cut through the quay constructions eight times and make concrete, U-shaped canal bottoms and sidewalls, standing on piling and connected to the quay construction. All this work just to have four canals cut- 21. ‘Bar codes’ 22-24. The hilly landscape of Amsterdam

- 16 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten ting through the island. But in reality it dicular canals, with eye level differences would give us a quay at the IJ water side of 2.8 meters in relation to these bridges. broken by slowly bending bridges, and And one could feed the ducks: we had our close-to-the-water access at the perpen- landscape!

25. First sketch of Java Island by Sjoerd Soeters

- 17 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten The urban lay out decision was made to tear them down and Now we had to think about the program replace them by a more of urban requirements, the urban lay out, humane living environ- the morphology and the ultimate grain of ment. the buildings. The statement of the city’s One of the problems of planning department was rather provok- these big horizontal gal- ing: ‘Formerly there were big ships lin- lery access housing pro- ing the quays, so why don’t you make big jects is that there’s too horizontal structures for our dense housing little social control. The program?’ The metaphor of the ocean liner endlessly long galleries as a housing solution was original, but not are open to everybody, entirely new. Le Corbusier had used the thus producing an scheme of le paquetbot ‘Flandre’ to show anonymous living area. the possibilities of a big linear building When an apartment type to solve France’s housing problem. building contains ten or The design of his Unité d’Habitation is eleven of such galler- based on this idea: the French landscape ies, the elevator is the is the ocean in which you can position the only place for people to ocean liner at will. It has a lower, mid- meet, but the number dle and upper deck; it has all amenities of people living there is on board, like a school, a cinema, shop- too high to get to know ping, a pool and a sunny deck. The model each other. The whole was also aiming at destroying the existing thing soon can be out ‘unhealthy’ French capital, leaving only of control. When you Notre-Dame, the city hall and the great want to regain control monuments by Napoleon, wiping out the by changing the pro- rest. Recent publications reveal the purely gram, the inhabitants, fascist thinking behind these ideas. the ways of access, or In the 1960’s, Amsterdam had built its whatever, you’ll face own version based on Le Corbusier’s town the enormous task to planning ideas: the urban reorganise the whole extension. Its disastrously failing residen- structure, hundreds of tial quarters had existed little more than meters long, which is twenty five years before the courageous impossible. 26. The ocean liner as metaphore as a housing solution by Le Corbusier

- 18 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten But also with housing with a different type came to an abrupt halt. in the hallway, in their own house, and so of access, organised by way of staircase It had become very clear to us that we on. All these different life styles will meet and elevator, with two or three flats per should aim for vertical instead of horizon- in the public areas like the quays in front level, problems occur. The widows liv- tal arrangement of units, and that it would of the houses, or in the enclosed court- ing in the posh area of Amsterdam Zuid be wise to make different types of houses, yards where the wind is less dominant and had kept up, cleaned and polished their with a limited number of flats per floor children can safely play and celebrate staircases and landings all their lives long, and thus a limited number of people shar- their birthday. The overall feeling will be when suddenly vacant flats were occupied ing the means of vertical transportation, that they’re not living in a housing com- by the upcoming class of young urban pro- and with a specific lifestyle in each house. plex, but in a new and lively part of the fessionals. These new arrivals were not This means elderly ladies who rise at 8:00 city. helping with vacuum cleaning, were leav- AM, go to sleep at 10:30 PM and keep ing their garbage in front of their doors clean their access area meticulously in one Exactly the way seventeenth century Am- and gave night long parties leaving the house; young students who sleep till 11:00 sterdam had organised the grain of build- front door open for the latest possible visi- AM and party from 11:00 PM, leaving bot- ings by the width of the plots of land, we tors. A clash of life styles or life patterns tles and garbage on every landing, in the decided that the apartment blocks along emerged: the tranquil happiness of clean house next door; young couples with chil- the quays should be 27 meters wide, divid- carpets and fresh flowers on each landing dren, a pile of tricycles and hobbyhorses ed in five naves of 5.4 meters. Along the

27.

- 19 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten canals a smaller type of single houses in style and each 27 meters there will be a four floors was possible. All housing would different exterior architecture in colour, have a view of the water (the IJ waters or foot and top of the building, so that the the canals), except for the housing in the game of barcodes that we admired so courtyards. These apartments would over- much in the historic centre of Amsterdam look the public area of the courtyard and emerges here as well. make it more alive. A part of the parking is found in semi-un- The consistent repetition of bays of 5.4 derground basements beneath the apart- meter, bundled per 27 meters, offered ef- ment buildings. The entrances and exits ficient spatial capacity both for parking in are located on the lateral canals, see fig- the basement and for making apartments ure 29 & 30. The remaining parking spaces on the floors above. Each 27 meters there are located outside on the north and south is a different floor layout for a specific life quay.

29. Entrances and exits of the parking garages

EXIT ENTRANCE

EXIT ENTRANCE

28. Structure of Java Island 30. Parking garages in the basement of the apartment buildings

- 20 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten In figure 31, you can see how we illustrat- ed with the primitive computer rendering techniques of the time, the play of the grain of 27 meter wide buildings with the openings of the canals in between, as seen from the north.

To demonstrate the possibility of filling a 27 meter building with a lot of very small apartments as well as with luxurious big ones, we illustrated various lay-out and architectural possibilities. Based on the Woonatlas, we identified four different target groups: Work/Hobby, Families, Low- Budget and Representative. Each life style

group has its own program of functions, 32-35. Four different target groups access and design. Housing for young fami- lies in ladies-magazine-colours, for the elderly well off in sophisticated tones of grey and white. All these different build- ings were to be randomly divided over the island.

31. The grain of the blocks

- 21 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten For the canal houses, we came up with all the primary living areas in the buildings different possibilities of typology: as a could be expected to direct themselves to separate individual house, platform ac- the view of the water, the courtyards risk cess, gallery access, duplex with access to be without ‘eyes on the street’, a prior- for the top houses over the roof and fi- ity dictated by the beloved Jane Jacobs. nally corridor access. In the end, the ca- To compensate this, so called backhouses nal houses were mainly developed as row of two bays of 5.40 meters wide were houses that were structurally interdepend- added centrally behind the position of ent: between two concrete ladder frames the elevator en staircase of each 27 me- that provide strength and stability a more ters building. In the backhouses two living freely developed house may hang its floors rooms per floor are oriented towards the freely without heavy structural worries. courtyard. For the same reason and to give backing to the backyards of the small ca- Volume studies showed the possible solu- nal houses, the already mentioned palazzi 36. Different possibilities of typology for the canal houses tions for the difference in scale and height were positioned parallel to the row of between the bigger buildings on the south canal houses, with their living rooms over- and north quays and the smaller houses looking the courtyards. These additional lining up along the small canals. To give two housing types helped to increase den- the courtyards enough sunlight, the deci- sity to the aimed 100 units per hectare, sion was made to make the southern quay and, together with a bicycle route that buildings not higher than five to six sto- connects all sub-islands, they helped mak- ries, the northern quay buildings could be ing the courtyards a safe place for playing seven, eight or nine stories high. Because outside.

37-40. Volume studies

- 22 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten Designing the buildings fresh and young architects were invited to windows had to be designed in series and design the smaller canal houses. rhythms, the façades not frontal but in According to an almost national rule, 30% The supervising team followed the de- perspective. Expression of the individual of the apartments to be build should be in velopment of the individual plans very building within the context of the row the category of social housing; three hous- closely. In each phase of design there were should be the game. ‘Unity in multitude’ ing corporations were acting as the clients several moments of presentation that gave as Berlage put it, or more eloquently in for that part. Half of the total number the time and possibility to reflect, interact the words of Raymond Unwin: ‘The variety were developed by the pension fund of the and steer. of each is dominated by the harmony of building industry, BPF, leaving 20% to be In order to realise a large degree of unity the whole’. developed for sale. The total number of and a great deal of variation and alter- units was approximately 1300 apartments nation within the continuity of the quay The development was phased per sub- and houses. buildings, a number of architectural rules island. The architects of every building on A team of supervisors was set up: Sjoerd were set, in order to prevent a ‘design such an island were attending and present- Soeters, master-planner, Ton Schaap, for war’. Only two pages in the booklet that ing their design proposals to the supervis- the city’s planning department, and Jan de explained the urban plan were used for ing team and their clients. During these Waal, for the city’s housing department. these guidelines (see Appendix 1). Unity meetings there was a lively process of In dialogue with the five different clients of materials (everything brick) and colour ‘peer teaching’ happening. Together, the that were to build the 1300 apartments (all window frames white) was prescribed, clients, architects and supervisors learned and houses, a selection of ten architec- variety in the heights of the buildings and how all different architectural ideas could tural companies for the apartment build- window sills and a different treatment of be brought together, following Unwin’s ings was made. Twenty just established, both plinth and top were required. The earlier mentioned motto.

41. Final plan

- 23 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten However, there were architects who pro- be young architect, have to design a house posed designs that in no way were fol- at the canal, you may consider it too bour- lowing the architectural guidelines, the geois or too obvious to have a front full of structure or the planning rules, stating windows looking out on this picturesque that their project was to be the outstand- view. For that reason, one of the canal ing exception. For instance, there was a houses is almost without a window on the design with the elevations completely in canal side. Sometimes, and within certain translucent glass.... There was also an limits, you have to loosen the reigns for idea to have one structure in four bays, ‘young heroes’. ignoring the prescribed structure of five bays of 5.40 meters per unit of 27 meters. When designs have been developed far As a consequence, the neighbouring struc- enough to be shown in models, architects ture would have six bays. This exception do so and make them presentable. In was eventually admitted by the supervis- those days, the early 1990’s, the tradition ing team, but one can still wonder what in modern architecture demanded that purpose it served. architectural models were to be presented The young architects who were commi- at their most abstract: preferably in grey sioned to design the narrow canalhouses cardboard or in wood. At first instance, and their fronts were of course sometimes the model makers who were to build the aiming at avant-garde solutions. For in- big model on which the individual designs stance, if you, as an upcoming famous-to- were to be positioned, refused to make the model figuratively: water blue, grass green, quays red, tarmac roads dark grey. They thought it was far beneath their pro- fessional dignity to make any model other than out of one single material and colour: in wood. Finally, however, after a lot of discussion, all models, urban landscape and houses were made in colour and they gave a perfect preview of the harmonious variety of images that was intended for Java Island.

42. Model of Java Island 43. Model of Java Island

- 24 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten Appendix 1 The architectural guidelines

- 25 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten - 26 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten The architectural guidelines

Quays Appearance Building heights and differentiation Corner solutions quay/canals The façade is more important than the roof. It is Between the canals a minimum of three different For the buildings on the corners between a quay and to be considered a flat surface. Plasticity outside functional building types must be used. Each type is a canal, different solutions can occur. Starting point the façade surface is out of the question. Means of to be focused on a particular category of residents is the plate-like façade at the quay side, where each expression must be sought in the limited depth of the from which it takes its corresponding spatial layout building has its own rhythm in windows, etcetera. It is façade panel. and atmosphere. undesirable to continue the quayside façade in colour Per quayside part between two canals, there can’t be and material around the corner to the full depth of While designing, imagine you’re looking along the two exactly the same buildings. the building: this façade belongs to the quay. quay. So pay attention to the following: Therefore, depending on the number of resident Theoretically, the quay façade of a building can be -the base rules of the rhythm of the facades, scal- categories which are found in each quayside part, ended at the corner by showing its thickness and, ing down: units of 27 meters, bays of 5.40 meters, there can be a need for different designs for the behind it, the canal side façade can continue in a window surfaces, and arrangement of the windows same building type. These designs can, for example, different colour or material. But this is not all that (verticals); differ in needs to be solved. At the corners of the north quay, -the contrast in colour of the façade material, win- -the colour of the façade; a transition needs to be made from approx. 8 floors dow frames and glass surface; -the proportions of the openings in the façade; high to 4 or 5 floors. The façade of the north quay -the amount of lines highlighted on the façade; -the width and the material of the window frames; needs to be completed to the corner. This means that -the amount of shadows and shading in the change -the cornice; the transition in height will be somewhere around from the façade material to the window frames and -the plinth. the corner, in the side wall. However, this can lead the glass surface. to too much emphasis on this very high facade in the To maintain the coherence, the unity in multitude, contour of the canal. To prevent this, the front just There are endless possibilities to work with. However, you should handle the differentiation of these aspects around the corner should continue at the full quay- to avoid too much contrast, the basic idea should be with care. side height to a limited extent and change in height, a plate-like façade in which the rhythm of the holes Between two canals, we look for a differentiation in colour and material at maximal 7500 mm from the plays the most important role. building heights for the different building types. On corner. The remaining part of this front façade should The most classical example is: dark bricks, white win- the north quay, a minimum of 20% of the buildings have maximal 5 floors. dow frames, incisions in the facade panel have depth, should be 9 floors high, 20% of the buildings should While a sharp ending of the quayside facades is the frames have depth and a vertical composition. be 7 floors high, the remaining buildings should be 8 sought for, at the same time it is the intention to con- Nonetheless it is expressly not the intention to copy floors high. tinue the canal façade as much as possible, in order this example. You should take its perspective as the On the south quay, a minimum of 40% of the build- to define the space of the canal. starting point for your design and try to find, with any ings should be 6 floors high, the remaining buildings 5 For this reason, the commercial space on the ground other possible means, a facade rhythm that provides floors high. floor, situated in every corner block of the north the desired richness of unity in multitude. However, Preferably, adjacent building types should vary in quay, will embrace the typology of the canal façade. in any case, a strong coloured brick should be used height; or by a different number of floors, or by dif- This means: at street level a skeletal façade with and the frames should be light in colour. ferent detailing and dimensioning at the top. windows. The entrance to the parking garage can be situated in this façade.

- 27 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten Canals Courtyards Appearance canal buildings Corner solutions canals- courtyard Appearance quay buildings Just as the quay buildings, the façade of the canal The façades of the canal houses at the corners can In the courtyards the different building types should buildings is more important than the roof. Also here show their thickness. You can use this to make the at- be recognisable as units. The facades are plate-like you should take the perspective as the starting point mosphere of the courtyard recognisable immediately and light, clear coloured bricks are to be used. The for your design and you should pay attention to the after coming round the corner, or to create a transi- effect should be that, from the courtyards, the fa- same points of focus as mentioned earlier regarding tion area by letting the façade go on for a bit around cades can be experienced as a single wall, as well as the quay buildings. the corner. a series of differently coloured types. The main difference however is that the ground floor If the canal houses consist of a row of upper and The back houses have fronts which are mostly trans- and possibly the first floor will have a skeletal fa- lower houses, the main staircase and the emergency parent. Their colour is to be neutral, white or natural çade with windows. Above will start a flat, plate-like staircase will be located at the ends of a row and aluminum. Small variations in details are possible façade. combined with a studio-like building. and allowed. The back houses are accompanying the The canal buildings are characterised by individual The studio is approximately two floors high. It accom- cycling and walking paths, they therefore must be lots with a maximum bay width of 6.60m. For each panies the cycle path and has a transparent charac- experienced as a series. canal there can’t be two identical buildings. While ter. It can be used individually, or can be attached to keeping the constant in mind of a flat, plate-like fa- an end house. Appearance Palazzi çade with a skeletal base, we’re striving for maximal The Palazzi buildings should first of all face the court- variation in material, colours and proportions. yard and secondly, they should accompany the cycling Occasionally, there is the possibility to create an and walking paths. Because of their location and outdoor area for the upstairs apartment on the canal typology, they are in contrast with the quay buildings side: and canal houses. Throughout the different court- -by pulling back the top floor (the façade will serve as yards, they should be recognised as a series. The ar- a parapet); chitectural design should make the palazzo recognis- -by using the roof of the adjacent, lower situated able as one single building. This can be achieved by, plot; for example, letting the roof embrace the building, or -by making holes in wall as loggias; by dramatising the façade round the main entrance, -by letting a small balcony sticking out the flat fa- etcetera. The cycling path can be accompanied by çade. a lower building part attached to the palazzo. This lower building part should have windows facing the The canal houses are standing on a plinth, rooms for path, or perhaps even entrance doors. The palazzo storages are situated in the plinth. ’s colour should be light. (minimal light reflection of Light and bright materials should be used for the back 80%). of the canal houses, and occasionally for (a part of) their front facades.

- 28 - Soeters Van Eldonk architecten