Impulse Programme Gewoon Goed
and quality
for feasibility
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Photos: Kick Smeets
With Impulse Programme Gewoon Goed, the City of Amsterdam aims to keep housing production on track by approaching the process differently - from area development to plot to house plan.
Visualization of the future Schinkelkwartier district
Area development
With Impulse Programme Gewoon Goed, the City of Amsterdam is also tinkering with the feasibility and affordability of area developments. The Guidance to the Impulse Programme is committed to focus, flexibility, optimising density – and a return to ‘calculate and draw’. In the impulse programme, that ‘calculating and drawing’ is preceded by setting focus in ambitions, say senior project manager Frank Karssing and senior urban planner Jochem Homminga: “This is about creating scenarios for an area, prioritising and making weighted, integrated choices related to feasibility, affordability, practicability and quality”. The Gewoon Goed Guide calls for avoiding stacking ambitions and being cautious about preconditions. It is about creating an integrated plan in which programme, spatial design and sustainability ambitions are balanced and mutually reinforcing.
Gewoon Goed ensures that area development looks much more at all aspects of the task, Karssing said: “There is better, more open reflection. You are more aware of the consequences of decisions and the scope for adjustments”. Jochem Homminga calls Gewoon Goed “a mindset”: “It’s about the willingness to do more with the market. Gewoon Goed is not a hard list, not a protocol, not radical. It is a small mindshift that leads to plans and buildings that are feasible, possible and good”.
Milena Zaklanovic and Fenna Haakma Wagenaar, designers at the Department of Space and Sustainability, City of Amsterdam
Small home plans
Can you live well in a city apartment smaller than 50 square metres? Yes, say designers Milena Zaklanovic and Fenna Haakma Wagenaar of the Department of Space and Sustainability – if properly designed. Within Impulse Programme Gewoon Goed, they developed guidelines for the quality of small homes with a team of colleagues. This way, the municipality is targeting the residential quality of the small units. That is an acknowledgement of the problem, says Fenna Haakma Wagenaar: “Until about 20 years ago, the floor plan was always part of the urban planning task. Nowadays, we often don’t talk about it at all, or there is a feeling that quality is sufficiently covered by the Building Decree. Gewoon Goed creates room for optimisation or innovation, and in any case also mandates us to make housing quality part of the initial conversation again. With the guidelines we developed as a team, we can start that conversation again. The reality of housing construction requires us to take back the steering and review in this task. With Gewoon Goed, we are creating that mandate”.
Ravelly under construction
Under pressure
Ravelly is being realised at a time when feasibility and quality are under pressure in residential construction, states senior project manager Zuidas Thijs Koolmees of the municipal Project Management Office: “With the contract agreements for this residential building, we launched in 2021. Even then, we noted that the market was changing and required a new approach. Construction has become more expensive. In addition, we are increasingly building in the existing city, where realising ambitions is more complex. That puts pressure on returns”. With Impulse Programme Gewoon Goed, Amsterdam is doing something about it. Koolmees: “The impulse programme is committed to workability, to making choices that ensure projects are feasible and good. We do this together with market players and spatial designers”.
Ephraim Abebe of Rochdale, Gus Tielens and Thijs Koolmees
Opportunities and ambitions
Project manager Epraim Abebe of Rochdale is happy that with Gewoon Goed, the City wants to, as he calls it, ‘get public housing back on track’: “The biggest gain is that we get to be at the table with the municipality on the front end to define the ambitions around a project. Because those are not always joint ambitions”. Korth Tielens Architecten was involved with Ravelly from the architect selection process. Architect Gus Tielens: “Rochdale’s call for tender was based on ambitions and objectives. At Ravelly, it produced a process in which everyone – municipality, corporation as well as the Zuidas landscapers – looked at opportunities and ambitions and were curious about the ambitions of others. That is a very different conversation from talking about all the things we can’t do”.
With Ravelly, the residential building designed by KorthTielens Architects for housing corporation Rochdale, the City of Amsterdam shows what Impulse Programme Gewoon Goed can do. Ravelly is a building by the book when it comes to what qualities the council is looking for in housing today – programmatic, urban planning, architectural and in terms of good living. Ravelly has 29 family homes that should keep families in the city. With a further 46 studios and two-room apartments, Rochdale also offers housing for starters and small households - an important target group for the corporation. Ravelly has no north-facing homes, and almost all homes have a two-sided orientation plus ample outdoor space - including the studios and apartments.
Ravelly under construction
Impulse Programme Gewoon Goed
Summary
and quality
for feasibility
Searching
Contents
Photos: Kick Smeets
With Impulse Programme Gewoon Goed, the City of Amsterdam aims to keep housing production on track by approaching the process differently - from area development to plot to house plan.
With Ravelly, the residential building designed by KorthTielens Architects for housing corporation Rochdale, the City of Amsterdam shows what Impulse Programme Gewoon Goed can do. Ravelly is a building by the book when it comes to what qualities the council is looking for in housing today – programmatic, urban planning, architectural and in terms of good living. Ravelly has 29 family homes that should keep families in the city. With a further 46 studios and two-room apartments, Rochdale also offers housing for starters and small households - an important target group for the corporation. Ravelly has no north-facing homes, and almost all homes have a two-sided orientation plus ample outdoor space - including the studios and apartments.
Visualization of the future Schinkelkwartier district
Area development
With Impulse Programme Gewoon Goed, the City of Amsterdam is also tinkering with the feasibility and affordability of area developments. The Guidance to the Impulse Programme is committed to focus, flexibility, optimising density – and a return to ‘calculate and draw’. In the impulse programme, that ‘calculating and drawing’ is preceded by setting focus in ambitions, say senior project manager Frank Karssing and senior urban planner Jochem Homminga: “This is about creating scenarios for an area, prioritising and making weighted, integrated choices related to feasibility, affordability, practicability and quality”. The Gewoon Goed Guide calls for avoiding stacking ambitions and being cautious about preconditions. It is about creating an integrated plan in which programme, spatial design and sustainability ambitions are balanced and mutually reinforcing.
Gewoon Goed ensures that area development looks much more at all aspects of the task, Karssing said: “There is better, more open reflection. You are more aware of the consequences of decisions and the scope for adjustments”. Jochem Homminga calls Gewoon Goed “a mindset”: “It’s about the willingness to do more with the market. Gewoon Goed is not a hard list, not a protocol, not radical. It is a small mindshift that leads to plans and buildings that are feasible, possible and good”.
Milena Zaklanovic and Fenna Haakma Wagenaar, designers at the Department of Space and Sustainability, City of Amsterdam
Opportunities and ambitions
Project manager Epraim Abebe of Rochdale is happy that with Gewoon Goed, the City wants to, as he calls it, ‘get public housing back on track’: “The biggest gain is that we get to be at the table with the municipality on the front end to define the ambitions around a project. Because those are not always joint ambitions”. Korth Tielens Architecten was involved with Ravelly from the architect selection process. Architect Gus Tielens: “Rochdale’s call for tender was based on ambitions and objectives. At Ravelly, it produced a process in which everyone – municipality, corporation as well as the Zuidas landscapers – looked at opportunities and ambitions and were curious about the ambitions of others. That is a very different conversation from talking about all the things we can’t do”.
Ephraim Abebe of Rochdale, Gus Tielens and Thijs Koolmees
Under pressure
Ravelly is being realised at a time when feasibility and quality are under pressure in residential construction, states senior project manager Zuidas Thijs Koolmees of the municipal Project Management Office: “With the contract agreements for this residential building, we launched in 2021. Even then, we noted that the market was changing and required a new approach. Construction has become more expensive. In addition, we are increasingly building in the existing city, where realising ambitions is more complex. That puts pressure on returns”. With Impulse Programme Gewoon Goed, Amsterdam is doing something about it. Koolmees: “The impulse programme is committed to workability, to making choices that ensure projects are feasible and good. We do this together with market players and spatial designers”.
Ravelly under construction
Ravelly under construction
