This contemporary home in Amsterdam is made of an old warehouse and features many interesting touches
The creative director of design studio Framework has turned a neglected 19th-century warehouse in Amsterdam into a plush family home for his wife and two children. The house is located along the waters of the city’s Prinsengracht canal and occupies a disused warehouse that was originally constructed back in 1896.
Framework first had to figure out how to work around the building’s meagre 50-square-metre footprint and narrow four-meter-wide facade, which was allowing very little natural light into the rear internal rooms. Although the studio initially had to strip away most of the building’s dilapidated interior, a structural partition on the first floor had to be left in place. It now divides a formal dining area and a nook with a five-metre-long bench seat where the parents can work or the two kids can do arts and crafts. The other side of the first floor accommodates a sitting room. It’s dressed with a stone-topped coffee table, sofa upholstered in deep green corduroy and a huge fine art print.
The studio decided to insert a black-framed glass roof above the kitchen. As the home doesn’t have a garden, Geerlings also ensured that the roof was retractable so that, in good weather, the room can be opened up to the outdoors. Grey marble has been used to craft a splashback and chunky countertop above the kitchen’s low-lying cabinetry. A white screen painted with abstract emerald-colored shapes has been erected at the rear of the space.
Oakwood floorboards run throughout, complementing the walls that have been loosely rendered in concrete stucco. Bolder colors, materials and furnishings appear in other rooms of the house. Surfaces have been painted dusky pink in one of the kid’s bedrooms, where there is a vintage statue of Disney character Pluto.
The kitchen is done with a marble backsplash, a glass roof that can be opened to outdoors anytime
The living room is full of light, the furniture is neutral and muted-colored, there are artworks
The kid's room is also catchy, with a glass desk, a pink lamp, art and a bold artwork over the bed
