Sluishuis: Floating Neighborhood in the Netherlands Wins French Architecture Prize

This year, the MIPIM Awards (Le Marché International des Professionnels de L'immobilier, held annually in Cannes, France) chose Sluishuis as the best residential project, a joint project between Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) & Barcode Architects . The housing project located in the Netherlands is self-sufficient and takes advantage of the surrounding landscape, something that the French award focused on in 2023: buildings that enrich the lives of their users, the environment and the community. The Sluishuis sits at the confluence of water, countryside and the city of Amsterdam and its name is a translation of a local building type. The project was developed and built by VORM, BESIX Real Estate Development and BESIX Nederland and functions as an artificial island in the IJ lake, almost like a new city block. The housing block has 442 apartments and is characterized by its distinctive shape: two "upward" blocks with a cantilevered structure create a cutout above the water, forming a kind of portal, and two other blocks descend towards the ground to house apartments with rooftop terraces. The four blocks surround a courtyard that extends down to the water . In the middle of the building are a sailing school, a water sports center and a restaurant with a large terrace. Boats can pass through the portal and dock in the building's internal harbor .

Where the blocks step down to create terraces, they are clad in timber to contrast with the external aluminium finish. Two long staircases ascend the two angular facades leading to a public green roof and garden with a rooftop walkway . Next to the housing block, there is a pier that has moorings for 34 floating houses and berths for 54 recreational boats. In terms of sustainability , the building’s heating requirements have been minimised by a combination of insulation techniques, triple glazing and heat recovery from ventilation and shower systems. The building is also heated by a combination of energy-efficient district heating and heat pumps for hot water and cooling. More than 2,000 m² of solar panels also capture enough energy to supply heating, heat pumps, ventilation and LED lighting.