IMPROVISED HOMES IN AMSTERDAM INDUSTRIAL SQUATS

BOOK: DAVID CARR-SMITH - IMPROVISED ARCHITECTURE IN AMSTERDAM INDUSTRIAL SQUATS & COLLECTIVES

TETTERODE - p7: DACOSTAKADE: MERKELBACH APTS - mb4

> TETTERODE - p8: DACOSTAKADE: MERKELBACH APTS - mb5/mb6 >

> TETTERODE - p9: DACOSTAKADE: HARTCAMP APTS - hc//hc1/hc2 >

> TETTERODE - p10: DACOSTAKADE: HARTCAMP APTS - hc3 >

> TETTERODE - p11: DACOSTAKADE: HARTCAMP APTS - hc4(1) >

> TETTERODE - p12: DACOSTAKADE: HARTCAMP APTS - hc4(2) >

> TETTERODE - p13: DACOSTAKADE: HARTCAMP APTS - hc5/hc6 >

> TETTERODE - p14: BILDERDIJKSTRAAT BUILDINGS >

> TETTERODE - p15: BILDERDIJKSTRAAT APTS - bd//bd1 >

> TETTERODE - p16: BILDERDIJKSTRAAT APTS - bd2 >

> TETTERODE - p17: BILDERDIJKSTRAAT APTS - bd3 >

> TETTERODE - p18: BILDERDIJKSTRAAT APTS - bdN >

MERKELBACH: HOMES & STUDIO-APTS - cont ...

On this page are shown level-4 enclave's three living-spaces:

YVONNE DRÖGE - [recorded: 2008]
PAOLO HARTGERS - [recorded: 2008]
TINA SCHRAMEIJER - [recorded: 1993] / TITUS & ESTHER - [recorded: 2008]

MERKELBACH: mb-L4 ENCLAVE


MERKELBACH: PLAN - LEVEL 4 ENCLAVE [mb-L4] (Architect-Drawing 1986 / top is EEN)	MERKELBACH: PLAN - LEVEL 4 ENCLAVE [mb-L4] (Plan: Mikel v Gelderen 2006 / info 2008 / top is EEN)


DACOSTAKADE mb/dc-L4 LANDING: mb-L4 ENCLAVE DOOR (& LIFT) (pic 08-1993 / to NNE) The enclave exterior before the late-90s repainting of the Central Stair, etc.. However the door glass was blocked with a paper(?)-based drawing of a lively mouse.	MERKELBACH mb-L4 ENCLAVE DOOR EXTERIOR: (pic 08-1993 / to NNW)	DACOSTAKADE mb/dc-L4 LANDING: mb-L4 ENCLAVE DOOR (pic 27-04-2008 / to N) Complicating the austerity of the late-90s re-paint peculiar 'art' and reject objects still unexpectedly appear in shared (circulation) spaces.

mb-L4 ENCLAVE PASSAGE (pic 2-05-2008 / to S) Looking back to the enclave's entry doors, past Yvonne's apt workroom door (previously the enclave's shower/wc) on the right side	mb-L4 ENCLAVE PASSAGE (pic 29-04-2008 / to NNE) The centre section of the enclave's passage with Paolo's 'front-door'; then its narrow final section.	mb-L4 ENCLAVE PASSAGE (pic 2-05-2008 / to #) The final narrow final part of the enclave passage, ending with the domain of Titus and Ester (previously Tina).

YVONNE DRÖGE APT & STUDIO (1995 --) [mb-L4 / SE-end - 2 bays] [recorded 2008] ... in process

[This space was not visited/recorded before april 2008]

The apt is "almost unchanged" since the previous owner (Louise) designed and made it. [Q "including the spiral mezzanine stair" !?]
- "by day it's a studio, by night a childrens' playground". <Q is this a 'family apt'?
She also has a small workroom [Q in//entered via the converted enclave wc/washroom opposite her apt entry ?].
Yvonne's previous apt (an independent space in the SE corner of Bilderdijk old building) is now in use by an associate as a studio.
In the pics below the apt is being used by Yvonne and two assistants to prepare a public art work.
At is SW corner the apt wraps the dc central lift.


YVONNE APT: APT ENTRY-DOOR - OPEN INTO MAIN SPACE (PAST THE KITCHEN) FROM ENCLAVE PASSAGE (pic 29-04-2008 / to #)	YVONNE APT: E-SIDE MAIN SPACE - KITCHEN & APT ENTRY-DOOR (pic 29-04-2008 / to S) Pushing the kitchen into the corner beside the entry door where the apt is narrowed by the central dc lift-shaft (behind the sink-wall) - signals that food preparation, though necessary, must minimally intrude on the apt's other functions.	YVONNE APT: E-SIDE MAIN SPACE TO ENTRY (paste-up 2-pics 29-04-2008 / to SW)

YVONNE APT: MAIN SPACE - S WALL TO SW CORNER (pic 29-04-2008 / to SSW) Behind the semi-dividing wall is a secondary space. At its east end is a full-height work-table space and at its west end a bed space with an office mezzanine occupying its upper half. At the far end is a small kitchen alcove whose depth is limited by the central dc lift-shaft.	YVONNE APT: MAIN SPACE - NJ WALL TO NE CORNER (pic 29-04-2008 / to #)	YVONNE APT: MAIN SPACE - N WALL (pic 29-04-2008 / to #)

YVONNE APT: E-SIDE MAIN SPACE - E END (pic 29-04-2008 / to N) "By day its a studio, by night a children's' playground".	YVONNE APT: E-SIDE SECONDARY-SPACE - ENTRY FROM MAIN SPACE (pic 29-04-2008 / to NE)	YVONNE APT: E-SIDE SECONDARY-SPACE - WORK-TABLE SPACE FROM BED (pic 29-04-2008 / to #)

YVONNE APT: E-SIDE SECONDARY-SPACE - BED-SPACE (pic 29-04-2008 / to SW) The length of this space behind the dividing wall is truncated by the central dc lift - on its end (west) wall is a deceptive mirror. Over the bed space is the office mezzanine.	YVONNE APT: E-SIDE SECONDARY-SPACE - BED-SPACE - MEZZANINE STAIR (pic 29-04-2008 / to SSW) The steel stair is gated against child access.	YVONNE APT: E-SIDE SECONDARY-SPACE - MEZZANINE OFFICE (pic 29-04-2008 / to N) A small mezzanine bridges the secondary space leaving a full height windowed-space over the work-table below.

YVONNE APT: E-SIDE SECONDARY-SPACE - MEZZANINE OFFICE (pic 29-04-2008 / to NNE)	YVONNE APT: ENCLAVE W-SIDE - SHOWER/WC & WORK-ROOM ENTRY (pic 2-05-2008 / to SSE) Across the enclave passage, opposite Yvonne's apt 'front-door', a small workroom has been made in the erstwhile enclave wash/wc facility.	YVONNE APT: ENCLAVE W-SIDE - SHOWER/WC & WORK-ROOM ENTRY DOOR WINDOW-PICTURE (pic 2-05-2008 / to WWN)

YVONNE APT: W-SIDE - SHOWER/WC & WORK ROOM ENTRY (pic 29-04-2008 / to W) View of the small workroom at the far end of the erstwhile enclave wash/wc facility (now part of Yvonne's apt) ... seen through its enclave-passage entry door (pic left). On the right (boundary) wall is a mirror reflecting a WC door.	YVONNE APT: W-SIDE WORK-ROOM (pic 29-04-2008 / to SW)

PAOLO HARTGERS APT & STUDIO (1994 - extended 2006 --) [mb-L4 / E-side cntr - 2 bays ] [recorded 2008]
[This space was not visited/recorded before April 2008]

Paolo moved into the south bay (his present domestic portion) in 1994 and used it for both living and working. In 2006 he added the north bay which became his workshop/studio. From that time he also developed both bays together as a single living-space. This whole living-space is still in process - especially the workshop portion.


PAOLO APT: mb-L4 ENCLAVE PASSAGE WITH PAOLO'S ENTRY DOOR (pic 29-04-2008 / to NNE) In the centre section of the enclave's passage (past Yvonne's apt) one encounters the 'front-door' of Paolo's apt - here open into his kitchen.	PAOLO APT: S-SPACE DOMESTIC - KITCHEN & APT ENTRY (pic 29-04-2008 / to SW) Paolo's enclave passage 'front-door' opens into his kitchen, under the bed mezzanine - bikes are parked outside in the enclave passage. The floor of the sitting/social area is raised to window level, affording the luxury of seeming to include in its space the magnificent Dacostakade and city view. (Two other Merkelbach apts adopted the same solution: Theo's located in a similar position on the floor above and Anja/Frank's in their Courtyard-facing L2 space.)	PAOLO APT: S-SPACE DOMESTIC - KITCHEN (pic 29-04-2008 / to NE) From the kitchen/lobby - made directly on Merkelbach's ubiquitous concrete floor - one mounts five steps onto the raised wooden surface of the woonkamer, as if climbing onto the kitchen's north side worktop - Paolo's son calls it a "table-floor".

PAOLO APT: S-SPACE DOMESTIC - KITCHEN (pic 29-04-2008 / to E) In the kitchen area the south boundary wall of the living-space is tiled.	PAOLO APT: S-SPACE DOMESTIC - KITCHEN & MEZZANINE AT NIGHT (pic 29-04-2008 / to W)	PAOLO APT: S-SPACE DOMESTIC - WORK DESK (pic 29-04-2008 / to SSW) Paolo intends to move the bedroom mezzanine stair to its north end against the wall.

PAOLO APT: S-SPACE DOMESTIC - FLOOR & WINDOW AT NIGHT (pic 21-04-2008 / to EES) The sitting area's raised floor has three large trapdoors - near the window is one over a bath.	PAOLO APT: S-SPACE DOMESTIC - WINDOW AT NIGHT (pic 21-04-2008 / to EES)	PAOLO APT: S-SPACE DOMESTIC - WINDOW S END (pic 29-04-2008 / to SE)

PAOLO APT: S-SPACE DOMESTIC - ENTRY TO N STUDIO (pic 29-04-2008 / to NW)	PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO - ENTRY TO S DOMESTIC (pic 29-04-2008 / to SE)	PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO WITH ENTRY TO S DOMESTIC - NIGHT (pic 21-04-2008 / to EES)

PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO - NIGHT (pic 21-04-2008 / to WWS) The workshop is in process. Paolo made the steel mezzanine. A shower will be installed under it in the NW corner	PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO (pic 29-04-2008 / to SW)	PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO (pic 29-04-2008 / to WWS)

PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO FROM UNDER MEZZANINE (pic 29-04-2008 / to NE)	PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO - N WALL WITH UMBRELLA LAMP - NIGHT (pic 21-04-2008 / to N)	PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO - UMBRELLA LAMP - NIGHT (pic 21-04-2008 / to NW)

PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO - STAIR TO MEZZANINE - NIGHT (pic 21-04-2008 / to NE) Welded steel and plywood.	PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO MEZZANINE - STAIR ENTRY (pic 29-04-2008 / to S)	PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO MEZZANINE BALUSTRADE - NIGHT (pic 21-04-2008 / to N)

PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO MEZZANINE - N END (paste-up 2-pics 29-04-2008 / to NW) Paolo made the studio mezzanine from welded steel.	PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO MEZZANINE - VIEW OF STUDIO - NIGHT (pic 21-04-2008 / to EEN)	PAOLO APT: N-SPACE STUDIO MEZZANINE - VIEW OF STUDIO (pic 29-04-2008 / to NE)

TINA SCHRAMEIJER APT & STUDIO (1986 - 2002) [mb-L4 / N-end whole E to W - equiv 2 bays] [recorded 1990 / 93]
[This living-space was recorded again in 2008 when occupied by Titus and Esther - both versions are shown below.]

Tina Schrameijer has used spaces on mb-L4 for making ceramics since 1982, while living in another squat. After Tetterode's legalisation (and the application of fire regs, renovation money, and the arrival of new people wanting smaller cheaper spaces) the mb-L4 floor was re-planned and permanent divisions built.

Facing imminent eviction from her outside living-place, Tina took a narrow space across the north end of mb-L4 (approx. 5·5m x 17m), analogous to Thom Pucky’s [mb-L2], but roughly rectangular, with angled west-corner windows and a strip-window spanning the top of the long north-wall. She divided it into halves with the apt in the west to catch the sun.

She began building in summer ‘86 and moved in to live in ‘87. The big 36m² all-wood mezzanine-platform was architect-checked for safety to qualify for grant money, its joists hang on the building’s concrete piers (not on the Collective’s cement-block walls) with a column at the junction of its big fronting beams. This column’s nine varnished drums are cylindrical cores cut from walls for heating-flues during renovation works (she collected the whole building's supply), 25cm steel pins bridge their cemented joints; the beam-junction is cased in cement with marble fragments and the tenth drum supports a ceramic chess-board (played from her favourite swing and stirrup position); the masks are African. The column stands on the factory’s concrete floor, its round foot in a triangular ceramic goldfish pool. The plank floor is nailed to thin joists over polystyrene insulation laid on the cold concrete.

Tucked under the platform against the studio wall, the kitchen and bathroom furniture and plumbing are her make, with found-basin and matching second-hand bath. The bathroom is a venue for ceramic jokes: on its ceramic floor are 3-D feet which one must step between (in human dwellings convenience can be even painfully subservient to other needs!).

The stair was made by a carpenter to her sketch - swapped for a ceramic chess-board. With the advent of a crawling child the mezzanine’s balustrade was necessary (64 ‘HEMA’ broom-sticks - the shop objected!). Though still furnished as a social sitting-space the railed space seems unresolved: become the child's-floor/cage; at its rear is a mosquito-curtained bed-alcove, looking over the adjoining studio through street-found glass. Nothing is new but the block walls, broom-sticks and the white kitchen tiles, the furniture is ‘family’ or off the street.


TINA APT: WITH ENTRY (pic 08-1993 / to SE)	TINA APT: MEZZANINE FACADE DETAIL - COLUMN TOP CHESS PLAYING 'SWING-SEAT' (pic 08-1993 / to E) The ceramic chess board tops the pillar. One player sits on the mezzanine floor, the other sits outside - riding the swing-seat with stirrups for their feet. The two masks are African ###	TINA APT: COLUMN FOOT & CERAMIC FISH POND (pic 08-1993 / to EES)

TINA APT: COLUMN-DRUMS (WALL CUT-OUTS FOR HEATING-FLUES) (pic 08-1993 / to ?)	TINA APT (pic 08-1990 / to ##)	TINA APT: VIEW FROM MEZZANINE STAIR (pic 08-1993 / to SSW)

TINA APT: FROM UNDER MEZZANINE (pic 08-1993 / to SSW)	TINA APT: CONSOLE TABLE (pic 08-1993 / to SW) An astonishingly minimal structure of ten bricks and a marble slab. ten bricks and a marble slab.	TINA APT: NORTH WALL (pic 08-1993 / to NNW)

TINA APT: KITCHEN - UNDER MEZZANINE'S NE CORNER (pic 08-1993 / to NE)	TINA APT: BATHROOM EXTERIOR - UNDER MEZZANINE'S SE CORNER (pic 08-1993 / to EEN)	TINA APT: BATHROOM INTERIOR (pic 08-1993 / to EES) The ceramic cladding is ### punctuated and edged with Tina's own tiles - flat and 3D (eg: feet on floor, bath and wall).

TINA APT: BATHROOM INTERIOR (pic 08-1993 / to SE)	TINA APT: VIEW FROM MEZZANINE - STAIR (pic 08-1993 / to SW)	TINA APT: VIEW FROM MEZZANINE - WINDOWS (pic 08-1993 / to WWS) From levels 3 to 5 Merkelbach's NW corner window is angled to face west.

TINA APT: MEZZANINE W-END (pic 08-1993 / to SW)	TINA APT: MEZZANINE E-END - BED WITH VIEW OF STUDIO & DACOSTAKADE BEYOND (pic 08-1993 / to NE)

TITUS & ESTHER APT & STUDIO (2006 --) [mb-L4 / N-end whole E to W + W-side N - equiv 3 bays] [recorded 2008]
[Tina Schrameijer's space became available in 2006 and was taken by Titus and Esther]

This is another living-space recorded in 2008 that is in process of being made. Only some of the largest structures in the main north space and the most essential fittings (eg the kitchen) are resolved in terms of position and use, furniture and smaller objects are often in temporary positions, not determined by mutual usability.. ... in process


TITUS & ESTHER APT: MAIN SPACE (WEST) (pic 21-04-2008 / to E) Titus made the mezzanine.	TITUS & ESTHER APT: MAIN SPACE (WEST) (pic 21-04-2008 / to NE)	TITUS & ESTHER APT: MAIN SPACE (WEST) - MEZZANINE BALUSTRADE DETAIL (pic 21-04-2008 / to EES)

TITUS & ESTHER APT: MAIN SPACE (WEST) - UNDER MEZZANINE (pic 21-04-2008 / to NE)	TITUS & ESTHER APT: MAIN SPACE (WEST) - UNDER MEZZANINE - N WALL (pic 21-04-2008 / to NNW) Tetterode's north-end wall from under the new mezzanine.	TITUS & ESTHER APT: MAIN SPACE (WEST) - NW CORNER (pic 21-04-2008 / to N)

TITUS & ESTHER APT: MAIN SPACE (WEST) - KITCHEN (pic 21-04-2008 / to S) The kitchen fittings are still in protective wrapping.	TITUS & ESTHER APT: MAIN SPACE (WEST) - KITCHEN (pic 21-04-2008 / to SSE)	TITUS & ESTHER APT: MAIN SPACE (EAST) - ESTHER'S STUDIO (pic 21-04-2008 / to WWS) [Much of Tina's apt still remains.]

TITUS & ESTHER APT: MAIN SPACE (EAST) - ESTHER'S STUDIO (pic 21-04-2008 / to NNE)	TITUS & ESTHER APT: MAIN SPACE (EAST) - ESTHER'S STUDIO (pic 21-04-2008 / to EEN)	TITUS & ESTHER APT: SUB SPACE - UNDER MEZZANINE (pic 21-04-2008 / to WWN)

TITUS & ESTHER APT: SUB SPACE (paste-up 3-pics 21-04-2008 / to NE)	TITUS & ESTHER APT: SUB SPACE MEZZANINE - VIEW (paste-up 2-pics 21-04-2008 / to SW)	TITUS & ESTHER APT: SUB SPACE MEZZANINE (pic 21-04-2008 / to SW) ... temporary shower right pic-edge

TITUS & ESTHER APT: SUB SPACE MEZZANINE - TEMPORARY SHOWER CUBICLE (pic 21-04-2008 / to W)