New Housing Renews Dutch Docklands

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A new urban prototype?
Inevitably such an endeavor begs comparison with efforts by New Urbanists in America to create more compact, walkable communities. While American Neotraditional developments have become in effect less privatized, devoting more land to shared spaces, this new Dutch model provides fewer pubic amenities than is common in the Netherlands. As West 8’s Geuze put it, you can’t have high-density development and private outdoor space and still have much room for wide streets or parks. The street scale is civilized in the Amsterdam development because its 40-foot width accommodates a single lane of auto traffic, a parking lane, a bike lane, and generous sidewalks. The streets feel far quieter than virtually any American neighborhood, simply because the Dutch use cars less frequently.

There’s less variety in the streetscape than West 8 hoped to achieve. The original idea was to have a couple dozen architects design most of the housing, but to scatter them in rows of from 5 to 12 units to avoid long, monotonous facades. But after the first 250 units were built, developers petitioned the city to limit the choices to only the six most popular unit types. The inevitable result is that some street fronts are lined with long, horizontally oriented slablike structures rather than the fine-grained rhythm of vertical facades that West 8 planned.

The appeal of the designs is inevitably varied, ranging from a gutsy design by Neutelings Riedijk to fortresslike brick blocks prissily punched with slitlike windows. Still, the sensibility is surprisingly akin to the streets of traditional cities, in which an exuberant Gothic revival townhouse tries to steal attention from the adjacent dour Romanesque brownstone. Because this is the Netherlands, where Modernism is the reigning design ethos, Borneo Sporenburg sports no gables, pilasters, columns, or entablatures. The streetside battle of styles tends to pit Neo Gropius against Neo Aalto. The rectangle is the key expressive element, deployed in arguably mind-numbing variety.

In America, New Urbanist dogma dictates the inclusion of neighborhood retail. Amsterdam signed an agreement with the developer of a nearby mall that competing retail stores would not be permitted amidst the housing. “We were confronted with the strange idea that a street should not have shops or bars,” says West 8’s Geuze. Individual initiative will ultimately enrich the mix, he thinks. “In Holland, it’s natural to start home-based businesses, so if you want to work on your computer at home, display textile art you make, or start a daycare center, no one can stop you.” Indeed, street-level windows at Borneo Sporenburg advertise a wide variety of internet and non-electronic startups. Such projects were abetted by West 8 design guidelines that mandated taller ground floors to permit adaptation to a variety of uses. Strategically placed ground-floor spaces have been designed for conversion for bars and cafes should regulations permit. Most floor plans allow even upper-level bedrooms to be turned easily into studios.

Most houses are tall rather than wide, and they tend to open up to light and views as you go up. The spatial gymnastics within the Borneo Sporenburg houses no doubt feel liberating to those who appreciate high ceilings and ample daylight, but such assertive, open spaces are probably best adapted to the childless couples and empty nesters who seek in-town amenities. More pragmatically, the flowing spaces make the small or narrow rooms appear larger.

Few American designers have faced the Dutch dilemma of creating density with amenity, but more are finding they need to learn how as urban-growth boundaries and traffic woes drive people to in-town locations with small sites. Too many American condos look as if they ran aground on a sea of parking; “garden” townhouses offer cell-like, concrete-paved spaces hemmed in by high fences. The best New Urbanist developments face these innate difficulties squarely, but in too many of them windows stare into the living room of the adjacent unit or gaze upon a sapling-dotted parking lot. The vinyl windows and synthetic stucco that have come to define builder houses don’t stand up to the close scrutiny they get in dense developments, which emphasizes the “neo” in Neotraditional.

Although the design of some of the Dutch units rightfully evokes guffaws, many skillfully navigate such conflicting needs as privacy and views. Doing density isn’t easy, but the best of Dutch-style new urbanism makes a convincing case that housing can indeed be reinvented for a new era.

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