OFFICE 22

An ideas competition was called for an empty plot in central Amsterdam – a traffic island traversed by a tram line and an underground tunnel abandoned before completion. Following the logic of the surrounding urban morphology, the proposal takes the form of a square block that fills the site. Encircled by a roundabout and accessible only through the aborted tunnel road, its perimeter is an opaque steel structure that incorporates a columbarium and shields a sunken garden. The walls are clad in brick on the outside and natural stone on the inside, where a window-cleaning lift gives access to the encased urns and flower holders without the need to enter the columbarium. The old tunnel slope serves as a ceremonial vehicle entrance to a crematorium below, while pedestrian entrances lead to the sunken garden. The tramway drives through the block at street level, traversing it diagonally via a bridge over the sunken patio. Clad in marble slabs, this bridge obscures the interior of the block, whose threshold separates two coexisting urban realities.