This project addresses high-density urban housing of mixed human and non-human habitat at the traffic intersection knot of Sloterdijk-Centrum in Amsterdam.

Sloterdijk-Centrum has been a monofunctional satellite downtown with office buildings for large cooperate companies concentrated around a public transport station. Due to increasing vacancy of its buildings, the area has become part of an urban revitalization strategy led by the Municipality of Amsterdam. This project for Kavel O is the result of a tender (finalist) aiming at inserting a massive housing program in immediate vicinity of the station area.

A large plinth with diverse, active program underneath one of the railway viaducts is the base for two residential towers. The larger one with a height of 90 meters contains 170 apartments of a wide spectrum of size and typology, assembled in the form of a three-dimensional puzzle. The lower building measures half of the height and contains student housing units.

One design focus was the integration of non-human habitat within a downtown area devoid of vegetation and marked by absent biodiversity and heat-island micro-climate. The building envelope is conceived as rich and varied substrata for vertically zoned, height-related life milieus.