Assignment
The Amstelcampus, near the city center of Amsterdam, will be the new home to 30.000 students. The campus is located at the Wibautstreet, close to the mtrostation Weesperplein, and is as big as two blocks of buildings. The Kohnstammhouse, designed by the famous Gijsbert Friedhoff around 1956, needs redevelopment and will have a central place in the future campus.
Design a redevelopment plan for the Kohnstammhouse, with special attention to the new function and the new urban texture of the future campus.
The design
Important with this project is the urban context and the place of the Kohnstammhouse within this context. The building is an beautiful eye catcher on the Wibautstreet, but works like a huge separator of the campus, dividing it into 2 parts. The characteristic architecture of the building is very prominent and stately, making it a perfect home to the main functions of the campus.
To reduce the huge separation the Kohnstammhouse realizes, there will be a big passage in the renovated building. This passage links the surrounding squares and continues the public space.
Because the immense size of the Kohnstammhouse can not be experienced from the inside, the future building will have vides on every floor to accentuate the verticality of the building. In those vides there is much more light and space, contributing to the comfort of the future users.
