Sluisbuurt Vertical City Research

BURTON HAMFELT URBAN ARCHITECTURE

By the year 2040, the number of inhabitants in Amsterdam is going to increase by 140.000. The question of where and how these people will live is one of the challenges that City of Amsterdam currently faces. Amsterdam will need more vertical density to house this growing population consisting of various groups of people, ranging from the well-off to the less fortunate. As popularity of urban living and the desire to be more connected to public transportation increases, vertical communities of high density become more of a necessity than choice. How can Amsterdam start thinking of clever models for building vertical communities, which will respond to the high housing demand while also creating attractive and healthy urban environments?

Tall buildings, which are affordable, adaptable and sustainable; which have small footprints, shared facilities, and public plinths are increasingly seen as an attractive urban living model. They can house residents with different demographics, therefore help form attractive and healthy communities. Recent technologies and social innovations allow us to re-think the concept of residential tower and to provide better spaces with surprising building concepts.

Positioning of high-rise in an urban plan is determinant for the spatial quality of the neighbourhood and the comfort experienced by its inhabitants. Tall buildings should be positioned and shaped so as to allow sufficient sunlight into public spaces and housing units, to ensure better views onto the surroundings and to disperse wind channels evenly throughout the neighbourhood.

Plinth of a residential tower creates interaction between the building, the street and the surrounding buildings. For the design of the plinth, human scale is determinant. Main body of a residential tower relates to the neighbourhood, contains most of the housing units and is also dotted with shared facilities at different levels for residents’ use. Finally, the crown relates to the city and marks the tower as a landmark. It often houses luxury apartments but more importantly various special functions that does not only serve the building or the neighbourhood but the whole city.

Urban blocks consisting of high, mid and low-rise buildings can accommodate a variety of housing typologies, therefore also a variety of inhabitant groups. High-rise buildings, carefully positioned in the plan, can mark and define important streets and public spaces, while mid and low-rise can help preserve the human scale. The plinth of a high-rise can provide the street with an urban façade and a public function. Additionally, by positioning entrances on the street and creating well-proportioned street profiles a healthy street life can be created in a vertical city. Finally, providing high-quality, public or private green spaces inside the block, together with green facades and roof terraces ensures a comfortable living in a high-density neighbourhood.

 City of Amsterdam is preparing to develop a new urban neighbourhood, Sluisbuurt on Zeeburgereiland, whose unique location on the IJ has earmarked it to be an attractive high-rise residential development. Vertical City research explained above was carried out parallel to the process of the making of Sluisbuurt Masterplan.

Discover more on Sluisbuurt here.

Location

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Program

Housing, offices, commercial, public facilities – 875.000 m2 GFA

Company

Burton Hamfelt Urban Architecture 

Role

Designer (Freelance Architect/Urbanist)

Year 

2016

Client

Gemeente Amsterdam

© Burton Hamfelt Urban Architecture

Renders of Sluisbuurt by LUMA