Alter Congestion

Alter Congestion was a project inspired by Amsterdam's touristic chaos, the question which role an architectural intervention can play in it and a conceptual approach to spatial design within such a context. Closely bound to imaginative strategies deriving from other creative investigations, a family of sixteen structures has been imposed on Amsterdam's dense center fabric. All of them were to react on their site and the conditions found in place, to challenge, alter and create alternative spatial experiences. Together, the family could act as a disturbing, yet enriching grid which was to adopt several possible functionalities and offers other layers of touristic experience – eventually forming a sort of collage of characterstics of congestion in Amsterdam. The Bridge – one of them, dealing with the topic of passage – links Rokin and Kalverstraat within Duifjessteeg and follows some of the principles developed for this project: Enhancement, Elevation, Reproduction, Escape and Shapemaking. The intervention aims to intensify the experience of narrowness and simultaneously copies it onto another level of hight. It is doubling the possibility of passage and forms a rather ironic, almost impertinent gesture, squeezing into one of Amsterdam's narrowest alleys.

2018