Claus and Kaan have done themselves a good service. Her business card made of concrete and glass occupies one of the most prominent places in the new IJburg district, which is being built on an artificial island (issue 21.2001). On a corner parcel that will soon border a marina on one side and the IJmeer, which is immeasurably large by Dutch standards, on the other, the Amsterdam branch of the office was built last year. From the building, you can see on the horizon the very different silhouettes of the historic town of Marken, the "new town" Almere and the wind turbines built there. It is a special place that testifies to both the modesty and the imagination of the architects.
Once the adjacent plots are built, the building will be part of a varied block of buildings of different heights. Its current free-standing location, which further enhances the clarity of this architectural statement, is limited in time. Once the new district is completed, the office building will be a cornerstone in the truest sense of the word and part of a larger whole. The two blind sides of the building that are still visible announce this: Three new, compact and efficient urban building blocks make clear statements. The choice of location and the special integration of the building into the urban plan for this part of IJburg, the so-called Haveneiland, also reveal the participation and corresponding ideas of the architects.
The very simple, rigid and almost monolithic building has six floors, all of which, except for the ground floor and the top floor, have a height of four meters. This is a decisive and deliberate deviation from the usual ceiling height of about three and a half metres, with which, with the same building height, seven storeys are normally realised. However, the three different ceiling heights of the ground floor, the office floors and the top floor are not recognizable in the strict and regular façade grid of load-bearing precast concrete elements, as the floors are slightly offset in relation to the façade. This "optical illusion" results in a parapet height of about forty centimeters for the four office floors. On the ground floor, with its ceiling height of almost four metres, the lower edges of the windows are about one metre above ground level. In the attic, the windows reach just below the floor. In addition, the roof was left open over the width of a façade panel, so that a roof terrace, or perhaps a patio, could be realized.
Source: Bauwelt 14/2018
Photos: Christian Richters, Luuk Kramer, Petr Šmídek, Primabeeld
