The New Courthouse by KAAN Architecten in the growing Zuidas district is one of the new projects on the rise on Amsterdam’s progressive architecture scene
All this activity has had a knock-on effect on infrastructure: hot hotel launches are routine these days, and last year a new North-South metro line began connecting Zuidas with the burgeoning Noord area. §Public bodies prone to scandal often turn to transparent architecture as a symbol of openness. Open to scrutiny, Amsterdam recruited KAAN Architecten to rebuild the existing law courts in Zuidas, a growing business district south of the centre toward Schiphol Airport.
OMA’s Rainer de Graaf designed the structure with three triangular volumes, echoing the surrounding Europaplein. Each of the three volumes pivots atop the last, with the highest supporting conference facilities with views over the Amstel River into town. A TV broadcast studio at 91 metres, will be available to residents and guests.On Vondelpark’s swankiest shopping street, PC Hooftstraat, architects MVRDV reimagined two heritage Dutch shopfronts with glass bricks.
They’ve designed sharp, glassy low-rise headquarters for the likes of Booking.com and Vodafone, interspersed with landscaped public piazzas and residential blocks, all due for completion by 2021. Few cities are less conducive to underground tunnelling than Amsterdam, with its feeble soil and high water table. Its six-mile North-South metro line, unveiled last year, culminates 30 years of planning, engineering research and excavation .