Borneo Sporenburg is one of the most celebrated contemporary examples of dense urban housing within a Western European context. It caters both to the aspirations of middle-class urban dwellers and to a social agenda for regeneration and community renewal.

Borneo Sporenburg was a dock area on the outskirts of Amsterdam serving trade with Holland’s colonies in the East. As part of the phased regeneration of these now disused areas, a residential brief of 2500 dwellings was set for this zone, dictating a high density of housing, despite the predominant market demand for a suburban self-contained house. The development demonstrates that family housing is not incompatible with dense urban areas. It reverses the predominant social trend towards a dense urban core inhabited by childless couples, singles and the extremes of high and low income, and a suburban fringe occupied by middle-class families.

Concept and method
West 8’s masterplan was based on a new approach towards the familiar demands of single-family houses – generous private outdoor space, a secure parking space, safety and individuality. Usually associated with a suburban and low-density form, West 8 created a framework for high-density living that nevertheless satisfied all the demands of a conventional household. It proposed a typology that was also reassuringly reminiscent of historical models in street layout and proportion. West 8’s masterplan set strict yet imaginative rules for the development including guidelines for streetscape, parking, private open space, storey height and plot width. West 8 also directly designed several landscape features, such as the three steel footbridges.

The Patio House
The innovation of Borneo Sporenburg is its reinterpretation of the single-house form for a high-density area (average 100 dwellings per hectare). The masterplan reacts to its exposed dockside position and dense residential brief by introverting what might usually be public space into private voids within the homes. By stipulating that 30-50% of each dwelling should be void, e.g. a patio courtyard at high or low level, the masterplan eliminated the need for private gardens at front or back, or ‘public’ open space exposed to the east winds of the docks. It also provided extreme privacy and security for the resident families, with strong gates to the ground floor also part of the masterplan’s rules.

The patio house typology made possible a simple rectilinear street pattern with narrow, deep-plan (sometimes back-to-back) and tall houses between the road and the canal, reflecting the traditional Amsterdam canal houses. Dwellings were built right up to the water’s edge, enabling safe private moorings to encourage the residents to use and enjoy their waterside location.

Breaking up the terraced houses, large sculptural blocks of apartments offer spectacular views over the city and give an urban presence and scale to the development. They offer metropolitan apartment living in contrast to the family-oriented patio houses on the street, creating a mixed community of ages and social habits.

A further important rule of the masterplan was that parking should not be provided on-street but should be incorporated into the volume of the dwelling. This led to half-sunken garages supporting a raised ground floor, carports and sunken carparks for the large blocks, allowing the streets to become a minimum width, maximising efficiency.

Diversity and the ‘Free Parcels’
Despite the large scale of the development, one of the major successes of West 8’s masterplan was in bringing diversity to the urban form within a familiar matrix of streets. Over 100 architects were involved, working within West 8’s design framework. The most visible manifestation of this was in the ‘free parcels’: a strip of plots won in a form of lottery by individual owners. The owners were then free to work with their choice of architect (from a long-list drawn up by West 8) to create their own house within the general guidelines set by the masterplan. The resulting visual vitality and expression of personal commitment to the area is one of the most successful aspects of the development.

Social identity
The Borneo Sporenburg model may be seen to orientate the city towards the individual primarily, with the ‘community’ as a secondary focus. However, by eliminating the ‘semi-public’ mediating zones of private gardens and parking spaces the house is brought into a very direct relation with the street, overlooking it directly and with front doors opening at one step onto the public realm. The sense of communal safety this produces is at present highly successful, while the sculptural bridges provide a focus for public enjoyment and activity in the summer. The model also sits exceptionally comfortably in its context, complementing and echoing the very particular local flavour without resorting to pastiche. The Borneo model used a select group of architects to ensure high quality thoughtful design, while limiting costs by the use of common floor-to ceiling heights and structural frames. The form of the housing reflects the tall brick townhouses of central Amsterdam and the Protestant culture of individuality combined with the communal responsibility from which it sprang, and which undeniably shapes Dutch culture today.

www.west8.nl