Superlofts, Amsterdam
Marc Koehler Architects

Tapping into the open building movement, the Superlofts project in the Netherlands offers its residents the freedom to design and self-build their homes from scratch, and co-create the shared spaces as a community.

Resilient buildings can adapt and evolve to a city’s ever changing programme and the lifestyles of the people who inhabit them. Unfortunately, as older building stock becomes obsolete this results in wasted empty or under-utilised space. For example, in the Netherlands the estimated total building vacancy is five times the number of new buildings constructed annually. Buildings that are unable to adapt to changing needs have to be demolished, creating enormous waste and pollution. Estimates suggest that buildings are responsible for 36 per cent of CO2 emissions and 40 per cent of energy consumption in the EU.

The Superlofts initiative is the brainchild of Amsterdam-based Marc Koehler Architects (MKA), and follows the Open Building approach, utilising a flexible and open framework that easily adapts to changing cycles of use and maintenance to facilitate a circular and resilient way of building. Its building systems can be updated in independent cycles without wasting materials or demolishing the building. For example, the support structure can be used endlessly, facades are updated every 25 years, installations (such as HVAC systems) every decade, and interiors every five years. Each system can be reused or recycled in independent cycles, tapping into the emerging circular economy.

Superlofts appeal to a growing community of individuals, who live new hybrid lifestyles with specific spatial demands

As a healthy building, it is constructed using clean energy, sustainable materials, and energy-efficient installations, and its high-quality interiors feature plentiful natural air, light and greenery.

Superlofts appeals to a growing community of individuals, with creative and entrepreneurial mindsets, who live new hybrid lifestyles with specific spatial demands. The possibilities of combining a home with an office or studio, music studio or commercial kitchen are restricted in conventional housing, whereas the blank canvas that Superlofts offers makes these hybrid forms of living possible.

The concept was inspired by an MKA-designed residential retrofit of an industrial harbour building, and was then applied in an experimental home-owners’ cooperative called De Hoofden. MKA developed the project further as Superlofts into an international network of building communities, with both buyers and renters. Five Superlofts have been completed in Amsterdam and Utrecht, and further projects in Amsterdam, Groningen and Delft are under construction. Sites in seven international cities are being researched.

The building itself is fundamentally simple. A prefabricated concrete base structure provides a framework of 3m to 6m-high and wide modules that can be flexibly combined into housing blocks, slabs, highrises or townhouses. Owners or residents then add their interior into these raw volumes, with complete freedom to customise and evolve it to suit their unique lifestyles and requirements. It becomes more affordable when owners can design and build the interiors themselves and invest gradually to grow into their space. The flexible and modular framework easily adapts to changing cycles of use to facilitate a circular way of building.

Owners add their own interior into raw volumes, with freedom to customise and evolve to suit their lifestyles and requirements

Centrally placed services shafts afford flexibility by allowing kitchens and bathrooms to be placed almost anywhere in the space. An integrated aluminium smart facade incorporates a CO2 sensor for ventilation, sun shading, drainage, privacy screens and large balconies into one adaptable modular unit. Utilising passive design, full-height glass facades flood the lofts with daylight and admit winter sunlight to heat the interior.

Efficient floorplans save 20 per cent circulation space thanks to the double-height lofts that only require alternate lift stops and reduce building heights by 25cm per floor, allowing the addition of an extra storey every 10 floors. Suspended cross-laminated timber mezzanine floors offer flexibility and adaptability by allowing spaces to be easily added (without the need for supporting walls) or removed. Generous voids bring sunlight further into the spaces to enable deeper lofts.

Superlofts celebrates the loft as an evolving, mixed-use space. Open, spacious and bright, SoHo’s iconic lofts were originally designed in industrial warehouses but proved easily adaptable over time. Repurposed by artists into living spaces and studios, they were later converted into high-end apartments and workspaces. The open Superlofts framework stimulates new hybrid residences such as an artist’s atelier, cookery studio, beer brewery and various home-offices, all intermixed throughout the building.

It offers a rich diversity of types from compact XS studios to luxury XL penthouses and affordable DIY units. These different dwellings bring a lively mix of residents who form a dynamic Superlofts community.

Shared spaces and facilities are central to creating active, self-organised communities that Superlofts thrive on. Each project offers a unique selection of collective spaces such as workshops, gardens and roof gardens, playgrounds, co-working spaces, gyms and living rooms.

Kitchen detail in a Superloft

In cooperative projects, residents form a close-knit community from the start, together selecting these facilities and co-creating the building.

Individual communities form part of a larger network of all Superlofts. The ambition is to establish a platform where members can exchange inspiration and experience about loft design, DIY solutions and smart-home innovations and download a library of building elements to 3D-print for themselves locally.

MKA is an international design agency founded in 2005 by Dutch architect Marc Koehler. The practice comprises a multidisciplinary team of 25 architects, designers and engineers. MKA strives to make meaningful spaces and products that reflect new ways of co-living and explore a socially responsible way of making buildings.

‘We try to create valuable connections between buildings and their environment, the culture of its users and the latest technical possibilities,’ says Koehler. ‘We aim to improve people’s lives by giving special attention to details in everyday situations and turning them into unique moments, using simple means. Architecture is thus not a luxury product but a creative mindset that can be applied at any spatial scale.’

Currently MKA is involved in the design of ecological dune houses, experimental collective housing projects, community buildings and urban design studies for self-made cities.

Images: Marcel van der Burg