Residential Complex “Freebooter”

By Caterina Testa - 5 March 2020
Jung has participated in the project

Over the last 30 years, the city of Amsterdam has extended into areas once within the precinct of the port. Starting in the 1990s, the manmade islands to the east of the city center were rapidly turned into new residential neighborhoods, followed by the islands of Ijburg, Borneo and Java. Today it is the turn of Zeeburgereiland, an island on one of the main routes for ships entering Amsterdam that had remained underwater until 1910.

The Freebooter residential project for two apartments of approximately 120 sq. m designed by GG-loop, headquartered in Amsterdam, occupies one of the development sites on Zeeburgereiland overlooking the river IJ. Conceived together with the contractor and property developer, the homes have been developed as an experimental prototype for the residential market in this area of Amsterdam that only a few years earlier was uninhabited. The project was also an opportunity to pay tribute to Dutch customs and culture, so closely linked to the country’s maritime past. The residence deliberately resembles a modern “ship on land”, with evident references to the wind, water and sails of old merchant ships. Similarly, the materials - timber, steel and glass - hark back to a ship’s hull. The name of the building refers to the independent entrepreneurs who would put together ships and crew and take to the sea in search of adventure and fortune, an example on the pioneering Dutch spirit. The same adventurous exploratory spirit also fired architect Giacomo Garziano, founder of GG-loop, when he gathered together a team of skilled craftsman and carpenters to realize his vision.

GG-loop’s project also takes on board biophilic design principles - the notion that the user of a building must be the pivotal concern of building design, which must give rise to spaces allowing true connection between nature and the built environment. Spaces designed according to biophilic principles provide a refuge and place...