Dépôt Zuid Loft
Dépôt Zuid Loft is a minimalist apartment located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, designed by pham. The project navigates a peculiar tension in contemporary adaptive reuse: how to honor industrial scale while creating domestic intimacy. This former Rijksmuseum warehouse, stripped to its facade during conversion, presented an unusual opportunity – the architects who reimagined the building itself returned to inhabit one of its volumes, designing from the inside out with complete knowledge of the structural bones they had already articulated.
The architectural inheritance shapes every decision. Vaulted ceilings retain the warehouse’s vertical ambition, while concrete floors grounded with curved brass inlays translate industrial pragmatism into gestural flourish. These brass lines trace organic paths across the floor plane, softening the rectilinear logic of the space without abandoning its material honesty. The move suggests a kind of calibrated rebellion – accepting the concrete foundation while inscribing it with movement and warmth.
Material selections throughout reveal an interest in veining, pattern, and surface narrative. Marble appears in carefully chosen panels, their natural striations becoming compositional elements. Twin kitchen islands topped in travertine rest on bronze bases, transforming utilitarian program into sculptural presence. The choice to elevate these working surfaces on metal recalls both altar and plinth, removing the kitchen from purely functional territory. A 4.5-meter sliding glass door dissolves the boundary between interior volume and urban garden, creating spatial elasticity rare in residential design.
The collaboration with textile designer Mae Engelgeer introduces crucial counterpoint. Her woven wall tapestry in the primary bedroom establishes a softer material register, one that continues through rounded furniture forms and muted color selections. This layering of hard and yielding materials creates what might be called tactile complexity – the space asks to be touched, moved through, experienced across multiple sensory registers rather than simply viewed.
The upper floor demonstrates how distance can replace doors as a privacy strategy. Leather tiles arranged in hexagonal pattern lead to a bedroom suite separated by spatial removal and a custom wardrobe intervention. This approach to threshold – gradual rather than absolute – reflects broader shifts in domestic planning away from compartmentalization. Carved basalt sinks and bespoke bronze handles throughout maintain material consistency while allowing each element distinct character.
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