Draaier op Oostenburg Apartments / BETA office for architecture and the city

Residential high-rises are rarely known for their sense of community. BETA’s design for an apartment building in Oostenburg addresses this by combining vertical access with collective spaces. Laced with a rich industrial history dating back to the seventeenth-century Dutch East India Company (VOC), the Oostenburg district is now one of the last significant urban infill projects in the city center of Amsterdam. In a dense urban scheme, BETA developed the design for a residential building with the aim of reconciling contemporary architecture with the rich heritage of the site. Unique about the building is how its residents are invited to take the stairs and meet each other. As such, ‘De Draaier’ is the direct consequence of BETA’s research ‘Active Design in Buildings’.