Space Encounters Office for Architecture

The dream of every urbanite: living in a gloriously repurposed heritage-listed building. Space Encounters joined a group of future owners and developer Lingotto to transform a characteristic former school into eight apartments, situated in the iconic Betondorp in Amsterdam Oost. In a true co-creation effort, all involved parties met regularly for workshops and brainstorm sessions to define the concept.

The result merges the old and the new: through an intervention that forms a precise add-on to the original structure, we restored the building to its former glory, using contemporary materials and techniques to emphasise its original shape, its clear architectural idea and composition. With its rigidly organised and large windows, the new facade that faces the inner court echoes monumentality. The original bright and high classrooms became generous apartments that are reached through dimmed and intimate corridors and the building is topped of with a spectacular top floor under the characteristic pitched roof.