Parkhouse/Carstadt examines the relationship of the car to the urban programme, deploying the car park as fertilizer of urbanity. 19,000 m2 of parking surface is the springboard for a further 35,000 m2 of floor surface area comprising a department store, shops, offices, housing, cafes and restaurants, and a hotel offering conference facilities.
An intense urban programme is essential if the historical city is not to sink to the level of a museological amusement park.

Parkhouse/Carstadt is set in the KernWinkelApparaat or Central Shopping Area (KWA), the oldest part of Amsterdam. This KWA draws in 14 million Fun Shoppers each year.

Parkhouse/Carstadt makes journeying to one's destination a pleasant ride across a sloping ground-level surface affording spectacular views across the old city. The fact that building and infrastructure are one means an optimum deployment of space.

Parkhouse/Carstadt has no rear elevation. The versatile front facade is unbroken and everywhere, even inside. Visibility and accessibility to the nth degree.

Parkhouse/Carstadt is among other things an extension one kilometre long of the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal in Amsterdam; a 19 metre wide parking slope rising at a gradient of 6% to a maximum height of thirty metres, snug in its site and in itself: a true contortionist.

Parkhouse/Carstadt is specified by the NPR 2443 (Netherlands Practical Guideline) and the idea that two-way traffic gives the building a variable length: L can vary between 2.5 metres and 2000.

Place of education: TU Delft
Tutors: Frans Boot, Bernard Leupen & Winy Maas
Specialization: architecture