Team Crossroads is the winner of the biggest ever Amsterdam housing construction tender. With a specification of over 30,000 mq, Crossroads responds to the ever-growing demand for good, sustainable and affordable homes in the Randstad, the Dutch megalopolis. With its polder roofs and green terraces and façades, Crossroads sets out to create a more environmentally friendly Amsterdam. Crossroads realizes an unprecedented urban quality thanks to its beautiful architectural profile. Due to its modular structure, the tower has optimum flexibility and differentiation. In addition, it will house public facilities aimed at the neighbourhood as well as residents. Spatial quality and ensuring social safety are key design drivers.
The overall concept with its two striking residential towers refers to a weathered rock in a green valley, which gradually becomes narrower and more angular. On and around the second ground level, greenery grows along the towers. This ‘Green Hug’ provides climate control, collects surplus water, reduces noise and improves air quality. The rainwater runs down the façades and terraces, flowing into a basin in the shape of a reflective pond with lilies in the ‘Secret Garden’. In this mysterious place to visit beneath the railway bridge, people and nature meet each other in an industrial landscape. The Secret Garden connects the two residential areas with each other. In this garden are green terraces, a plank bridge, a walkway through the water, artificial lighting and light art. Various artists will show their work here.
The 90-metre-high western glass tower is slender and rectangular, the open treatment of its corners offering maximum views. The east tower is 40 m high and is the student-housing tower, dynamically constructed from rotated blocks. All facilities are concentrated at the entrance, which is located on the station side. In addition to the various state-of-the-art techniques applied to the acoustics, climate control system and water storage, a special feature is that it is even possible to control housing costs.
Team Crossroads is a collaboration between TBD and MVSA Architects, with partners Kondor Wessels Amsterdam, Delva Landscape Architects, De Dakdokters, VIAC and Klimaatgarant. Construction will begin at the end of 2019.
