Good morning, people, it's a Brand New Day!

OWLA didn’t do an end of year post or Christmas Jolly last year, grateful for the holiday alone. I do an end of year circular mainly for music, books and cultural distraction but aside from John Cale’s Fragments of a Rainy Season and the marvellous Willow figures I came across in Runnymede, it doesn’t really deserve a mention here. What does, is the flat we stayed in in Amsterdam last November.

This was an Air BNB and a family home. Modern but close to the (old) city centre. The charm of Amsterdam is its historic cityscape, but they are also unafraid (unapologetic?) about the modern. This extends to the wider Dutch approach to housing that is bespoke and contemporary wherever you go. Sometimes it does not work, mostly it does. It doesn’t feel it needs to mimic nor doff its cap to a past that never was and consequently puts people (community) first, is integrated and affordable.

Ours was a low-rise four storey block with a slightly set back terrace at roof level. Ever so slightly austere, with a repetitive motif blocks are long with street facades enclosing communal and play space. The lower storey is retail and office (and the mix rather than the segregation is important) with a grander scale - the rhythm broken by entrance lobbies to the residential element above with a generosity of space for what provides a lift and a stair only – often brightly coloured (a northern European antidote to limited light and drabness). This gave access to two apartments on each level and the occupants of each engaged with us. The street was the preserve of the pedestrian and the cyclist with a central island (that accommodated subterranean bin storage). Never far from a tram, bus or supermarket cycle and vehicular parking was available but not on the street.

Where the façade was solid it was brick, but our flat was south facing and almost entirely glazed. This creates layout restrictions given a single aspect and an extruded plan but these are generally overcome by placing ancillary to the non-passive side and living space to the front (the current residents appear to have altered the original layout to suit their needs). The flanking flats clearly have to accommodate a northern or other aspect, and the façade treatment is different though there was no opportunity to explore this further. So solar gain we are thinking (though for much of the year a terrific amount of beneficial light and warmth). Glazed sliding doors are faced by a system of aluminium louvres that run on tracks and are manually positioned with a very simple balustrade on the inside simply anchored to the floor; in this way the appearance of the building is a function of the residents needs and demands of the climate; simple, functional and visually stimulating. A canal faced the façade that both reflected light and introduced constant movement.

Floors and ceilings appear to be concrete plank – exposed internally (the floor timber or painted screed) with preformed penetrations – these and flank walls absorbing that solar energy and a form of mechanical ventilation was employed with a gas boiler. The area of the flat was c.154 sqrm, for what was originally a two (now three beds, 3 bath) apartment. In the UK this would be less than 90sqrm for an entry level three-bedroom house. Ours was not exceptional but was affordable, functional and commodious. In this town you felt looked after. So rather than creating hutches with a commitment to the cavity wall, the purposeless gablet or God forbid, the plastic pilaster can we not spend the money where it matters and be a little more European?