IMPROVISED HOMES IN AMSTERDAM INDUSTRIAL SQUATS

During its squatted stage Henk and Leonie were the only Edelweis artist-squatters to live in the building. Henk was unique in using the site only for a home - he had a studio elsewhere until the building was divided in 1991. Leonie was unique in both living and working there. When its main central space (the erstwhile restaurant) was divided into studio portions with board partitions [PIC: p1] they made living-spaces in the building's east and west ends: first Leonie in its east-end theatre stage and rooms, then Henk in the west-end entrance-foyer/stair. When in 1991 the studio portion of the building was divided into 5 similar living-spaces, each with its own entry stair, Henk retained the now functionally redundant foyer/stair and developed it as his separate 'private-house', while Leonie moved from her complex of theatre-rooms into one of the new simple spaces of the ‘row of 5’.

Leonie's second living-space, and those of Godelieve, Charlotte, Liesje [Ref: p3] exemplify the ‘row of 5’ (I regret never visiting Gerard's apt at the centre of the row). Constructed in identical 19.5 x 8.5 x ht: 6m spaces they constitute a kind of individuality-test! The monumental cubic simplicity of these ‘containers’, with their straight solid sides and glass ends, dominate (in memory) the complex individualistic structures within them; even the large mezzanines that span the spaces give an impression of independence reminiscent of aircraft in a hanger.

Because they represent a process of development through both stages of the site's occupation - as squatters then as legal owners - Henk's and Leonie's spaces are shown first:

HENK LIVING-SPACE (ver 1: 1983 to 91 / ver 2: 1991-)
His version 1 apt in the building’s foyer is unique in site and history: the only living-space occupied by the same person before and after the 1991 division - when both the use of its site and its form as a living-space were radically transformed. Both stages are shown here: its first squat-period version [PICs: 1990]; and its second post-division version [PICs: 1994].

LEONIE LIVING-SPACE 1 (8-12-82 to 91) / LIVING-SPACE 2 (1991-)
Both Leonie's apts are shown here: her first squat-period theatre-space [PICs: 1990]; and her second post-division living-space, which is shown in two states of completion: during its first post-construction fitting-out stage [PICs: Jan 1992] and increasingly domestically established and sophisticated [PICs: Aug 1993 and 1994].

EDELWEIS: LIVING-SPACES (S-FACADE)

(DR 1994+2006 / info as at 8-1995 / to N)

[This diagram is an approximation derived from on-site drawings.]

The main part of the building is raised 5.4m off the ground on 42 I-beam pillars. The height of the raised portion is approx 6m to the roof centre and 4.5m at the facades.

EDELWEIS: LIVING-SPACES (LEVEL 1 PLAN)

(DR 1994+2006 / info as at 8-1995 / top is N)

[These diagrams are approximations derived from on-site drawings.]

The interior dimensions of the 5 centre apts (my 'row of 5') are approx 8.6m x 19.5m / between the wall-embedded columns = 13.3m / a diagonal between the columns = 16m.

HENK TER KULVE LIVING-SPACE (VER 1: 1982/84 to 1991 - SQUAT) / (VER 2: 1991-- - STICHTING (COMPANY))

HENK LIVING-SPACE (VER 1: 1982 to 1991 - SQUAT)

Edelweis’ entrance-foyer and ‘grand’ stair to its restaurant level are housed in a rectangular brick-clad glass-fronted extension at the west end, which emerges as if extruded from the elevated main body of the building. During the 8½ years of the squatting period (up to the 1991 dividing) it was the normal entrance to the upper-level studios. From late 1982 it was also the unlikely venue of an evolving living-space: its first version symbiotic on the foyer’s forms and use, the second post-1991 version reconstructed as an independent studio/apt that filled the whole volume of its newly sealed site.

Among the Edelweis living-spaces Henk’s is unique. It is the only space to maintain a continuity of occupant and site since early in the squat-period (the two other early apts changed occupiers), and it inhabits a unique site: the only space based on the ground, in a visibly distinct portion of the building, internally encumbered (unlike the other empty spaces) with massive forms.

It began in late 1982 when Henk and Leonie left their shared ‘encampment’ in the restaurant’s kitchen and established living-places, she in the east-end theatre facilities, he into tiled chambers under the foyer’s huge stair.

In 1984 Henk extended his troglodytic apt into the unused volume of the foyer - dynamically articulating the great wedge of space above the stair with an ‘aerial’ construction, a triangular glass-walled bedroom platform supported on RSJ’s welded to the facade stanchions and buried in the concrete wall. A decisive insertion of a formal counterpoint to the stair’s ponderous symmetry, and of an irrelated function (the private-domestic) into the stair’s dull pompous dilation of a simple need. This first version of the living-space was a tour de force of adaptive ingenuity and structural resourcefulness, it reconciled the contradictory requirements of open access and domestic privacy in a way that formally dramatised their sharing of the space - emphasised their exclusiveness yet facilitated experiential exchange, subtly syncopating their confrontation and overlap. It also hardly touched the host building, requiring welds to four facade stanchions and a tiny cavity cut in the stair's south wall.


EDELWEIS SQUAT - W-END (pic 9-90 / to EEN) The glazed entry-front of the dockworkers' restaurant/theatre. In the space of its glazed foyer and over and under its 'grand' stair Henk made his extraordinary apt.	HENK (VER 1): FOYER SIT-SPACE (pic 2-9-90 / to SSW)	HENK (VER 1): FOYER STAIR (pic 2-9-90 / to SE)

HENK (VER 1): FOYER SIT-SPACE & OVER-STAIR BEDROOM (pic 2-9-90 / to S) A marvellous adaptation to and of an unusually awkward site - a living-place both aerial and troglodytic: utilising the triangular volume behind the glass entry front; squeezed in the narrow high vestibule, lapping the slope of the wide stair and filling the cavernous rooms beneath it - its potential for dynamic architecture and domestic utility affirmed by an audacious structural addition: a triangular glass-walled bedroom supported asymmetrically over the huge diagonal of the stair, approached up tiny steps and handholds jutting from the tiled cliffs of walls.	HENK (VER 1): WALL-STEPS TO BEDROOM (pic 2-9-90 / to NNW)	HENK (VER 1): WALL-STEPS FROM THE BEDROOM (pic 2-9-90 / to SE)

HENK (VER 1): BEDROOM ENTRY FROM INTERIOR (pic 2-9-90 / to S)	HENK (VER 1): BEDROOM INTERIOR TO ENTRY (pic 2-9-90 / to SSE)

HENK LIVING-SPACE (VER 2: 1991-- - STICHTING (COMPANY))

On the purchase of the building by the artists' Stichting in 1991 and its division into independent living-spaces, the foyer-stair became functionally redundant and Henk reconstructed his apt to fill its whole volume, including a studio whose floor spans between the side-walls of the stair (and destroyed the ‘hovering’ bedroom) - thus in spite of its physical differences it now exhibits the same studio/domestic duality as all the Edelweis living-spaces.

Compared to the first apt’s original fiat the new version is conventional and confusing. Now isolated inside its own building - without the dramatic clash of functions to motivate design innovation - the enormous forms of its obsolete access-role at worst simply impede the space, at best provide structural support. Building around, over, and within these intrusions has resulted in a labyrinthine interior:

Starting at a new entry door cut in the rear wall, a two-branched 'burrow' wraps the volume of the great stair. One route opens into the cave-like living-rooms beneath it, climbs and skirts a narrow platformed sleeping-space in the tiled gap outside the stair’s inner wall, twists around this wall’s prow (where the ‘flying-bedroom’s’ steps once jutted) and - after this long sequence of enclosures, climbs, dog-legs and constrictions - walks out into a space like a ballroom: the magnificent volume of the new studio; at whose rear the foyer-stair’s upper flight emerges from beneath the new floor and mounts to a wide terrace (the entry landing of the former restaurant), from where, over a balustrade of glowing light-boxes, one surveys this new space to its outer limit: the huge glass screen-wall of the old facade. The second route, right-angled to the first, skirts the under-stair cave-room’s outer walls: first along the building’s rear, fringed with narrow kitchen, shower and wc; then along its side, a thin and empty passage to what was the front foyer - now a lost fragment beneath the new studio floor, fringing the pavement behind a sealed glass facade.

The new formation has left awkward spaces difficult of access and of as yet undefined usefulness - it will almost certainly continue to evolve.


HENK (VER 2): EXTERIOR SW CORNER - ENTRY-FOYER & STAIR (pic 8-95 / to NE) The former restaurant/theatre entrance foyer, its 'grand' stair, and under-stair caretaker's spaces is now Henk's almost-'detached house'. Henk's new studio now claims the vast W-facade window while its floor now slices this cubic volume in two. Apart from a bed-platform, domestic functions are now mainly at ground-level: behind the street-entry doors in the now redundant foyer; under the huge stair (that still diagonally bisects it), and in the passageway around the stair's perimeter.	HENK (VER 2): EXTERIOR SW CORNER - S-FACADE (pic 9-94 / to NNW) Except for narrow spaces along the 'outside' of the support walls of the 'great-stair' - the huge studio occupies the whole upper level and a sitting-room and child's room the understair 'caves'. The narrow S-side space is lit by 6 windows, the 3 upper (new 'copies' of the originals below) light the access-stair landing and a sleeping platform; the 3 lower light a hallway entered through a new 'front-door'. Across the E-side a passage (lit by a row of windows and housing Henk's kitchen) passes behind the rear support-wall of the 'great-stair' and continues along the N side into the old front foyer.	HENK (VER 2): EXTERIOR SW CORNER - E-FACADE - 'FRONT- DOOR' (pic 29-10-06 / to WWS) Henk's post 1991 'house' is entered through the east wall of the foyer-stair block - one of its row of six windows was enlarged to make this home-sized door.

HENK (VER 2): HALLWAY ALONG S-SIDE - VIEW TO ENTRY-LOBBY & 'FRONT-DOOR' (pic 9-94 / to E) The support-walls of the huge foyer-stair dominate the interior and determine the allocation of domestic functions.	HENK (VER 2): PASSAGE UNDER-STAIR ACROSS EAST-SIDE WITH KITCHEN (pic 9-94 / to N)	HENK (VER 2): OLD FOYER (UNDER NEW STUDIO) - TO ENTRY (pic 9-94 / to N)

HENK (VER 2): OLD FOYER (UNDER NEW STUDIO) (pic 9-94 / to S) The foyer - once a dramatic ‘exchange-space’ between Edelweis’ access and Henk’s apt - is now this washing-hung cul-de-sac; the terminal leg of a long perimeter passage from the new rear door. The new studio floor has sliced the grand entry and reduced the old foyer to a residual wedge, bizarrely walled with glass and half a stair.	HENK (VER 2): HALLWAY FROM ENTRY (pic 9-94 / to W)	HENK (VER 2): HALLWAY ENTRY TO UNDER-STAIR-LANDING LIVING-ROOM (pic 9-94 / to NNW) The former caretaker's store.

HENK (VER 2): UNDER-STAIR-LANDING LIVING-ROOM (pic 9-94 / to NNE)	HENK (VER 2): UNDER-STAIR-LANDING LIVING-ROOM W-WALL WITH CHILD-ROOM ENTRY (pic 9-94 / to SSW)	HENK (VER 2): UNDER-STAIR CHILD-ROOM (pic 9-94 / to N)

HENK (VER 2): FROM UNDER-STAIR-LANDING LIVING-ROOM INTO HALLWAY (pic 9-94 / to S)	HENK (VER 2): HALLWAY UP TO STUDIO (pic 9-94 / to E)	HENK (VER 2): BED-PLATFORM - ON WAY TO STUDIO (pic 9-94 / to E)

HENK (VER 2): BED-PLATFORM - BED (pic 9-94 / to SE)	HENK (VER 2): STUDIO LANDING FROM BED-PLATFORM - STAIR-HATCH TO HALLWAY & STUDIO ENTRY (pic 9-94 / to W)	HENK (VER 2): STUDIO & STUDIO ENTRY ROUTE (pic 9-94 / to E)

HENK (VER 2): STUDIO (pic 9-94 / to NE) A display of theatrical grandeur that is an almost inevitable by-product of constructional choices imposed by the building. The new floor’s three supporting RSJ’s are welded to the facade stanchions and rest on the great stair’s mid-way landing [ref: Henk's squat-apt pic].	HENK (VER 2): STUDIO (pic 9-94 / to E) The studio's mezzanine is the old foyer-stair's top landing, extended forward over the remnant of stair that emerges through the new studio floor.	HENK (VER 2): STUDIO - THE FRONT OF ITS E-END MEZZANINE - EMERGENCE OF THE OLD FOYER-STAIR ! (pic 9-94 / to EES) The old foyer-stair emerges through the new studio floor - the new mezzanine projects over it providing 'stepped-storage'; only a small portion still serves as stair.

HENK (VER 2): STUDIO FROM MEZZANINE TO W-FACADE WINDOW (pic 9-94 / to W)

LEONIE GREEFKENS LIVING-SPACE 1 (1982 to 1991 - SQUAT) / LIVING-SPACE 2 (1991-- - STICHTING (COMPANY))

.
LEONIE LIVING-SPACE 1 (1982 to 1991 - SQUAT)

EDELWEIS FROM E-END - THEATRE WITH GROUND-LEVEL ENTRY & THE GLAZED FACADE OF THE 'ROW OF 5'.
(pic 9-94 / to WWS)

Leonie's liv-space 1 (the first in Edelweis) utilised this E-end 3-windowed theatre portion, whose stage faced down the length of the restaurant and whose back-stage rooms have external access through their glazed porch.

Leonie's 2nd living-space is immediately adjacent to the stage, at the E-end of the glass-walled 'row of 5'.

LEONIE 1: BEDROOM ON THEATRE STAGE
(pic 9-90 / to NNW)

Leonie made the theatre stage and rooms into her first living-space in late 1982. She glazed the proscenium and styled the raised stage as her 'theatrical' bedroom - looking out into a space that, after the 1991 dividing, would be walled off from the stage and become her living-space2.

The approx. 3x7m window is cheap 2nd-hand glass set in her own wood frame.

[The post-Leonie theatre living-space is shown on p3.]

LEONIE LIVING-SPACE 2 (1991-- - STICHTING (COMPANY)) ... in Jan 1992 - fitting-out phase:

Leonie's second living-space, begun in 1991, was first recorded in Jan 1992 when the recently divided space had already acquired at least the most basic forms of its main interior structures: entry-door, bed-mezzanine, stove placements, service pipes; but its walls were unrendered, most of its domestic fittings were either temporary improvisations (the shower!), or in inconclusive positions of need relative to a changing environment whose most important provision was the facilitation of its own change/completion.


LEONIE 2: STUDIO FROM BED MEZZANINE (pic 1-92 / to NNE)	LEONIE 2: FROM STUDIO ENTRY & DOMESTIC AREA (pic 1-92 / to SSE) A plastic wall separates the studio and domestic spaces.	LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA CENTRE (pic 1-92 / to NE)

LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA - CENTRE TO WINDOW (pic 1-92 / to SE)	LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA - SINK AREA (pic 1-92 / to SE)	LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA - SHOWER (pic 1-92 / to S)

LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA - ON BED MEZZANINE (pic 1-92 / to SSE)

LEONIE LIVING-SPACE 2 (1991-- - STICHTING (COMPANY)) ... from Oct 1993: ... in process

Leonie said she values calm - the atmosphere of her apt is "calm space". She dislikes the floor's tile pattern - it's "unquiet" ... that 'the pattern of the whole 60m long floor worked - a single huge design - but not in sections'.

This extraordinary 'exhibiton' of dynamic forms whose complex interacting sometimes affords startling spatial conjunctions (eg: the view from the diagonal mezzanine) was made by someone who claims that as a "designer of space my talent is zero" - 'always 2D only, due to astigmatism from birth'.

All the storage-units, table, desk are made from her recycled art-works and Edelweis glass.


LEONIE 2: LIVING-SPACE ENTRY (pic 9-94 / to EES) Initially the stair up from the Plein served the living-space via a triangular door-faced 'porch' [ref: Jan 1992 phase above]. This simple entry-box 'grew' an elaborate structure that includes a shower/wc-cell that reciprocates its triangular formation [ref: below].	LEONIE 2: LIVING-SPACE ENTRY & SHOWER/WC-CELL STRUCTURE (pic 9-94 / to EES) Skirting the counterweighted door, a 'stair' of 'shelves' surmounts the glazed 'roof' of the shower/wc-cell, extending width as it ascends to touch the receding diagonal of the mezzanine. Leonie calls this stair her "Whoopqie in the Why of Nowhere".	LEONIE 2: LIVING-SPACE ENTRY-DOOR (OPEN) (pic 9-94 / to N) The inclined entry-door's counter-weight is strung from the door's handle, and via the truss above, hangs beside a mezzanine support tube, in visual counterpoint with the silver portions of the stove's dismantled chimney and the copse of metal verticals beyond.

LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA FROM STUDIO NW CORNER (pic 9-94 / to SSE)	LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA FROM CENTRE (pic 9-94 / to SSE)	LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA - SOUTH WINDOW FACADE (pic 10-93 / to SSE)

LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA - TABLE (pic 9-94 / to SW) This table is made from recycled art-work (supports) and an Edelweis window element (top).	LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA TO STUDIO (pic 9-94 / to NE) [Note the next picture, taken 11 months before, and compare both these with the apt's state in Jan-92 above]. The big 3m high storage-units are made of Leonie's paintings.	LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA TO STUDIO (pic 10-93 / to NE)

LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA - FROM SIT SPACE TO KITCHEN (pic 9-94 / to N) Looking from the couch [ref: pic above] across the counter and kitchen-space to the bath-wc/apt-entry structure beyond.	LEONIE 2: APT ENTRY & SHOWER/WC-CELL LIT (pic 9-94 / to EES)	LEONIE 2: SHOWER/WC-CELL INTERIOR - WC (pic 9-94 / to NW)

LEONIE 2: INSIDE SHOWER/WC-CELL - BASIN & SHOWER (pic 9-94 / to NE)	LEONIE 2: SHOWER/WC-CELL - LAMP (ON) (pic 9-94 / to NW) A tangled and wire clipped length of weather-proof cabled-lamps, bought for a woodland painting project, is hung in this reflective tiled cell.	LEONIE 2: SHOWER/WC-CELL - LAMP (OFF) (pic 9-94 / to NW)

LEONIE 2: DOMESTIC AREA VIEW UP TO MEZZANINE (pic 9-94 / to NNE) The mezzanine bed-platform is the wooden theatre stage that was the site of Leonie's first Edelweis bedroom [ref: above], supported on eight 3.9m steel tubes welded to steel strapping. Its plan is a truncated right-angle triangle which bridges the apt's 19.5m width; 6.8m wide along its west side, 2.5m along its east. Its statics was checked by an experienced person.	LEONIE 2: MEZZANINE - NW CORNER COLUMN - TOP BRACKET (pic 9-94 / to W)	LEONIE 2: STUDIO - MIRROR & MEZZANINE STAIR (pic 9-94 / to SSW) The mezzanine spiral stair was found (!) in the debris of a commercial-building demolition. She removed its paint and rubber treads.

LEONIE 2: STUDIO - VIEW FROM MEZZANINE (pic 9-94 / to NNE)	LEONIE 2: APT-ENTRY & DOMESTIC SPACE BEYOND - VIEW FROM MEZZANINE STAIR (pic 9-94 / to SE)	LEONIE 2: STUDIO/DOMESTIC JUNCTION & APT ENTRY - VIEW FROM MEZZANINE (pic 9-94 / to EES)

LEONIE 2: ON MEZZANINE WITH VIEW DOWN TO APT-ENTRY (pic 9-94 / to SE)	LEONIE 2: ON MEZZANINE - CLOTHES CUPBOARDS (pic 9-94 / to SE)	LEONIE 2: ON MEZZANINE - BED (pic 9-94 / to SSW) A modern hand made bed - a throw-out from an Amsterdam-School house.

^ Top > Next Page >.

< EDELWEIS - p1: INTRO < EDELWEIS - p2: LIVING-SPACES > EDELWEIS - p3: LIVING-SPACES - cont >

. CONTENTS 4 SITES SILO TETTERODE DE LOODS EDELWEIS APPENDICES NOTES SUB-SITES