The Centre for Musicians in Amsterdam-Noord offers both professionals and amateurs the facilities to rehearse, perform and meet.

This building type is new to the Netherlands and perhaps to the world. A musician hires space for a particular length of time to practice and then returns home. There are in addition public facilities such as shops, restaurants, cafés and two large concert halls. These conditions inform the way the programme is organized. The building's three components are defined using the metaphor of a castle-in-the-air. Its main volume hovers above a public ground-floor level. The broad upper component houses the larger public facilities such as the concert halls and the tall component studio clusters and practice rooms of all shapes and sizes.
The building shape additionally draws on the morphology of the urban setting. All signals picked up from the surroundings are reflected in the building's parti. On the south side the form responds to the fine-grained suburbs there, on the west side to the water and in the east to the motorway by gradually descending towards it. The taller volume acts as a landmark between the motorway and the new developments in the water on the other side.
The stair is the building's main artery, structuring the routeing and connecting the internal organs. Reception desks serving the several clusters are located next to the stairs, as are the lounges where the musicians can take a break. The stair makes space for the social aspect; it has a breath-taking spatiality and generates activity. This vertical concrete sculpture responds in form to the functions round about, as an expressive three-dimensional artery within a generic stacking of studios.

Place of education: TU Delft | Specialization: architecture | Tutors: Udo Garritzmann, Pelle Poiesz, Maarten Meijs