IJburg — Living on Reclaimed Islands

IJburg is Ams­ter­dam’s largest hous­ing exten­sion and will even­tu­al­ly count 18.000 homes. It con­sists of 7 arti­fi­cial islands in lake IJmeer, which are being devel­oped in phas­es. The cre­ation and real­iza­tion of the first 4 islands start­ed in 1999 and was fin­ished in 2011; the sec­ond phase start­ed in 2013. A large vari­ety of hous­ing typolo­gies, includ­ing urban hous­ing blocks, row hous­es, indi­vid­ual fam­i­ly homes and even float­ing homes, char­ac­ter­izes the islands. In some areas IJburg is exempt from the super­vi­sion of the munic­i­pal beau­ty com­mis­sion, grant­i­ng home­own­ers total free­dom in design­ing their dwelling.

On this tour we’ll explain why and how the islands were cre­at­ed, how their shape was deter­mined and what the spe­cif­ic chal­lenges were. We’ll also let you know about the urban con­cept, hous­ing typolo­gies and social background.

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Tour Programme: IJburg

  • Expla­na­tions about the cre­ation of the islands: ground own­er­ship, tech­nique, urban plan­ning, etc
  • Steigerei­land: pri­vate hous­es by a.o. VMX Archi­tects, Claus en Kaan, Rocha Tombal, Faro (2008–2011)
  • Sluishuis: ter­raced hous­ing com­plex in the water (BIG and Bar­code, 2022)
  • Float­ing hous­es (Mar­lies Rohmer et al, 2010)
  • IJburg har­bour with mixed-use block Jonas (Orange Archi­tects, 2023)
  • Grote Rietei­land: detached pri­vate hous­es by a.o. Stu­dion­ine­dots, Hans van Heeswi­jck (2014); Ten­nis Club (MVRDV, 2015)
  • Cen­trumei­land: self-build homes under construction

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