Amsterdam housing corporation gets a first with wooden residential building

Stadgenoot is the first housing association in Amsterdam to realize a wooden residential building for social rent. The project, which will be given the name De Houten Leeuw (Timber Lion), comprises 56 studio apartments for youngsters and will be built entirely from Cross Laminated Timber (CLT).

 

Stadgenoot has hired the renowned project developer M.J. De Nijs to jointly take care of the development. Architect firm Heren 5 was responsible for the five-storey design, in which circularity, light and space are key. Hamlet Design+Build Technology, which specializes in wooden high-rise buildings, is responsible for the structural design of the wooden structural shell and is also responsible for the realization.

 

According to Hans Rietdijk, Senior Project Director at Stadgenoot and responsible for De Houten Leeuw, sustainable and circular construction is an explicit ambition for Stadgenoot. "With this wooden residential building, we are fulfilling our sustainability ambitions, because we also opt for circular solutions for the other building components such as the facade", says Hans Rietdijk.

 

What is special about the building is that the elevator shaft and the stairwell are also built entirely from CLT. According to Hans Lormans, founder of Hamlet, it is often wrongly believed that a wooden building must have a concrete core for stability or fire safety. "That's really a misunderstanding", explains Lormans. "Together with De Nijs Projectontwikkeling, we are currently also working on an 12-storey residential building, in which the entire load-bearing structure is completely made of CLT, including the stairwell and the elevator shaft. You have to make that choice at the start of the project and design it well right away."

 

De Houten Leeuw will be built in the middle of 2022 in the Amsterdam Kolenkit neighborhood. The wood used comes from sustainably managed forests in Austria.