Gerard Dou
AHAM Realty purchased the first floor of Tweede Jacob van Campenstraat 140, an unremarkable restaurant, in 2016. Not much later, the three-story apartment above it could also be purchased. Which created the opportunity for AHAM to completely renovate/transform the building into as many as five homes.
The existing 19th-century house was provided with an extra floor with roof terrace and completely preserved – each layer is now a whole house. We also made a plan to repurpose the garden, which extends to Gerard Doustraat. The dilapidated catering warehouse was razed and made way for real architecture.
After extensive and proper consultation with the municipality of Amsterdam, we were allowed to add a layer as an exception; unfortunately, the building was not allowed to be higher than these two floors. We then decided to go deeper by adding a basement. We wanted a three-story house. The bathroom, bedroom, and storage room in the basement border a small patio at the back of the house, which completely eliminates the “basement feeling.
The supporting structure and floors are made of hardwood, and the staircase, as a central piece of furniture lit by a skylight, is a beautiful connecting element. The house has over 70 square meters of living space, which has been used extremely effectively. The combination of the elegant Petersen brick and hardwood window frames and facade parts make the modest house stand out. A dapper single-family home, right in the middle of the Pijp.