On the historic Ringdijk in Amsterdam East, a contemporary apartment complex was built with seven homes. Because the original buildings could no longer be preserved, new construction was chosen.
The clients wanted environmentally friendly, life-proof homes with maximum freedom of choice for the buyers with regard to the floor plan. In order to use the space as intensively as possible, they chose a semi-underground basement with three layers above it and a roof storey.
Characteristic of the Ringdijk is the activity and liveliness in the plinth (the entrance level and basement). To respond to this image, facade facades covering both floors were chosen. The entrance to the complex is located at ground level and thus has a height of one and a half floors. The apartments are accessed by a walk-through elevator and a stairwell. The distribution of windows in the facade follows that of the demolished building, which consisted of three properties with two windows per layer per property.
A system of solar water heaters and geothermal heat provides the homes with heating and hot water. In summer, the system can be used to cool the apartments. The homes have a high level of insulation.
The Ringdijk, off Middenweg, is a sort of village in the old Watergraafsmeer, a motley row of houses at the foot of the old polder dike. On the site of three old buildings, a block of new construction has risen with seven apartments, developed entirely by aspiring residents. The initiators are Jan Kolthof (54) and his business partner Wijnand Luttikholt, who have a company that renovates dilapidated properties. They had already submitted a plan in 1996 to firmly refurbish Ringdijk 11, 12 and 13 and then, together with people who used to rent there, to live in them themselves.
However, the condition of the buildings turned out to be so bad that they had to be demolished. A modified building plan ran into all sorts of obstacles, with the result that the site remained in the news for years (not very well) as "the hole on the Ringdijk. Kolthof eventually changed tack. This resulted in a residential building according to the latest insights: climate-neutral and life-cycle proof.
Director Donald Harte (47) of Warmtebelang, an installation company specializing in renewable energy technology, set up a complete engine room in the basement. No fossil fuel is involved in the heating; the floors (even those in the stairwell) are heated with geothermal energy, extracted a hundred and fifty meters deep from the earth. "The installation is powered by one hundred percent green electricity," Harte explains, "so the CO2 emissions are zero - exactly the target of the City of Amsterdam by 2015." The additional cost of such an installation over conventional heating in this building is about twenty thousand euros, Harte calculates. "But the energy costs are half of heating with natural gas. Here they can recoup the extra cost in four years."
The seven apartments were delivered as shells. Each resident could discuss with architect Cornelis Willemsen how his apartment should be arranged. The shell price of the three large apartments came to about 400,000 euros for 125 square meters; the four smaller apartments, of about sixty square meters, went away for 250,000 euros. Not cheap, but for that price there is an elevator in the building. One apartment could thus be occupied by a disabled person. "Really every apartment is different," Kolthof says proudly, "every resident had maximum participation."
Of course, it is no surprise that in such a self-build project, residents loudly praise their homes ("village tranquility, view of the dike and all the stores nearby") and give a high rating, a 9.7. The jury that compiled the top ten selected the Ringdijk only after some deliberation. Barbara Dijk was the deciding factor: "These people have spent so long making something they themselves want to live in, and then it's also suitable for the disabled."
Two small apartments were bought by architect Ben Loerakker (80), known among other things for the RAI Congress Center, the courthouse on Parnassusweg and the hotel now under construction for Westerdok Island. "I was looking for housing for my college-age grandsons when I happened to walk by here," he says. "The next day I sat down with Luttikholt and signed right away. Yes, they were bought within a day. When I'm sure of something, I like to do it quickly."
"For these starters it is impossible to rent and these are ideal homes for them. Here now sits grandson Jan, also almost graduated architect. But they are in fact exchange homes. I have eight grandchildren. They get a contract for five years, then they have to get out, then it's the next one's turn."
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