Uptown is a proposal to redevelop the Shell site of eighty years standing and growth on the north banks of the IJ inlet in Amsterdam. The scheme unfolds a strategy for recycling abandoned industrial and port areas. Whereas most new-build in such areas is preceded by wholesale demolition, Uptown specifically takes its cue from the buildings and spaces already on site.

Here, Shell seeks to set up a 'research and development valley', whereas the City of Amsterdam wants to build houses on the north bank of the IJ. Uptown proposes for the area an intensive growth and compaction over the next 25 years with a mix of R&D and housing. It proceeds from the existing buildings, which are sounded out as to their architectural and programmatic potentials. This generates the concept for the new-build which is to be sited on, through and against the existing. Each block is to be different, thereby intensifying the current disorder. I have worked out two blocks in detail: Block 5, a new laboratory building for Shell research and development, and Block 11, a hotel with 135 rooms and amenities accessible to the public.

In Block 5 three brick 'solids' each with their own courtyard are transformed into a single mega-solid with a three-dimensional supercourt. The interstitial space is public and provides circulation as well as light, air and views. All programmatic requirements of both old and new elements are reached from this space by stairs and escalators. Here terraces, balconies, a basketball court and a roof garden join the circulation space. In the new-build's materiality too, I have turned to the existing brick building. The net result is a particularly spacious block that impacts as a single building while embracing the richness of both the existing and the new. The hotel that is Block 11 is premised on a former workshop with sawtooth roofs which inside generate a magnificent 'ceilingscape'. The hotel rooms slip beneath the shed roofs and between the existing lattice trusses. Below the rooms are a welter of public amenities including a lobby, a bar, a restaurant, business and sports facilities and parking. Between these is the circulation space with stairs leading off to the rooms. Differences in height between the floors of the rooms define the purpose of the shared space below and once again spin out a spectacular ceilingscape.

The two fleshed-out blocks, the blueprints for three further blocks and the concept for the public space make this strategy, which proceeds from the qualities of the existing, an interesting option with which to infuse new urban life into areas that have fallen into disuse.

Place of education: AvB Amsterdam
Specialization: architectuur
Tutors: Rob Hootsmans, Edzo Bindels & Art Zaaijer