M3 consists of a shock therapy of architectural interventions along the principal infrastructure of the Westelijke Tuinsteden or 'Western garden suburbs' in Amsterdam. It proposes interventions at eight places within the existing urban fabric. These constitute a response to a number of issues afflicting the modernist urban structure, and at the same time seek to translate the intrinsic monumental quality of this structure into a high-octane architectural vocabulary.

M3 is a reaction against the current strategy of compacting the Westelijke Tuinsteden in which large chunks of the existing structure are swept away to be replaced by new-style residential 'islands'. It seeks instead to give the area's image a powerful boost by precision bombing it with a salvo of architectural interventions.

In adding a string of public urban programmes, this project seeks to combat the area's programmatic monotony and redefine the void within the existing structure. The series of interventions locks into the regional network by being hitched directly to the principal infrastructure axes on site. This gives the area the opportunity to register at the regional scale in a new way. The social challenge facing the area, including efforts to achieve a more even mix of its population groups, is broached by redefining the quality of its public life. A number of urban focal points carefully inserted into the area's structure are there to draw the undercurrent of on-site potentials to the surface.

The interventions benefit the area's new image and at the same time tap into the unique structural qualities of the Western garden suburbs. Defined from the perspective of the motorist, these interventions strengthen the area's expansive monumentality. The generous turning circles, gently sloping ramps and wide street channels effortlessly create a scale for the interventions that slots wonderfully well into the modernist structure. At the same time, it adds a new monumental layer to the area that expresses the latter's great scale in architectural terms.

The car has a key role to fulfil in the restructuring programme. Motel, cinema, parking facility and home all take on a wholly new aspect that directly relates the motorist as much to the programme as to the public realm. Various drive-in structures engineer a flow between the seriously isolated principal axes and the surrounding residential areas. Each intervention acts as a bridging piece that integrates the world of the motorist with that of the city-dweller. The interventions serve to recharge the impact on the senses of both infrastructure and public social space, so that the immediate surroundings of both groups of users are structured and orchestrated anew.

Place of education: TU Eindhoven
Specialization: architecture
Tutors: Jos Bosman, Hüsnü Yegenoglu, Marco Vermeulen