BODY

schematic floor plans

The 157 apartments, business units and public spaces, in the Housing Silo, are compressed within a 10 story high and 20 meters deep urban envelope. The apartments, rental and owner in different sizes, are stacked in internally connected neighborhoods.
Each “house” differs, both in orientation and size; they can be half a block, a whole block, or diagonal over two floors, some with terraces or balconies others with patios.The apartments are not only different in size and color, but also by the placement of the interior walls that can be moved and replaced by future inhabitants.

BUILDING

Silodam is a primarily residential complex situated on a pier in Amsterdam. In addition to 157 homes, the complex contains 600 square meters of commercial space.

The housing units are clustered into small "neighborhoods" of 4 to 8 houses. Each such cluster is given its own identity through different colors and materials.The resulting blocks of color, together with the materials, shape and proportion, result in a building that resembles a container ship.

Through this design, the building makes reference to the port aspect of the city.The building is designed to provide a wide variety of units to respond to different needs and wishes of different individuals. The complex consists of different types of units that vary in width, depth, number of stories, window types, presence and type of outdoor space / balcony, layout and access method.

CITY

The Housing Silo is situated on the IJ River, at the tip of the pier, next to two former grain warehouses (silos) that have been converted.

The IJ River served as Amsterdam's harbor in the golden age. Then, when the harbor fell into a decline, the buildings, warehouses, and shipyards were left unused.In the 1980s, when Amsterdam had a housing shortage, the city regained interest in the river's potentials and a variety of restructuring projects, where the designers tried to fuse the remaining structure and character of the harbor with new architecture, followed.

ENVIRONMENT

The building's public spaces are open to the natural elements, roof gardens, viewing balconies,

and also a space under the building where home owners at Silodam can moor their personal boats.... To address the issue of the views of the water from the pier being blocked by the building, the designers penetrated the base of the building with a wide passageway that leads to a pubicly accessible balcony.

TECHNOLOGY

Built on the water, the Silodam building is embedded into the ground of the harbor, using massive pillars. Atop the pillars, the building is based on a "table" of con create.... it seems as if you could relocate the building and place it on any other platform.

IMPLEMENTATION

within the tight urban, structural and building regulation boundaries, the limits put onto it by the desires and imagination of government, clients, city, inhabitants and designers, the building indexes the interaction between restriction and innovation.

NEIGHBORS

The tenants in the Silodam building are as diverse and different from one another as the design and planning of the building Itself. The Building offers different spaces, living/ working arraignments and interaction, therefor it is to be expected that the tenants of the building will add to its colourful facade.

NEIGHBORHOOD

MVRDV have explained that the building holds in it neighborhoods. This is clear to see when looking at the diversity of the elements that put together the building. The architects of the building have, in fact, folded and stacked into the building different neighborhoods of Amsterdam. It is important to note that a usual neighborhood holds in it different programs as does the Silodam.

NEIGHBORING

The building is an isolated neighborhood, but with that it holds in it different programs that lead to different types of interaction. The neighbors are free to use the different facilities available and to meet one another.

The exterior of the building shows a different story all together. The facade of the building is put together in a way that the building does not disclose the inner division and programmatic use. The colours are only encrypted by the tenets.