Borneo Sporenburg Housing • KAAN Architecten

This project was originally designed by Claus en Kaan Architecten.

Borneo Sporenburg redevelops two peninsulas in the eastern docklands of Amsterdam, once the scene of an active harbour, into high density residential areas. The new neighbourhood is comprised of 1400 single family homes. Mostly wall-to-wall, these slender houses are accessed at street level and spread over five sites in Sporenburg. Several architects were selected for the realisation, all working with the same typology: the introverted individual house.

The goal was to design an archetype suitable for the plots set out by the master plan. The design solution proposed a dwelling of two principal forms that combined front façades, but allowed for variation in internal configurations. The project achieves clarity by the uniformity of the design, satisfying requirements set out in the master plan, but also creates a clear and even radical separation of inside and outside spaces, leaving no semi-public zones that all too often become the forgotten, dubious areas of the neighbourhood.