Silodam,lifestyle in AMS
Comtemporary house interpretion by MVRDV


Silodam is one of a group of large residential slabs designed by the Dutch architects MVRVD between 1994 and 2007.It is prominently located on Amsterdam’s waterfront. From the distance, its colorful, rectangular form can be easily mistaken for shipping containers reminded of a time when Amsterdam’s port was more flourish as an industrial dock.

House Types



MVRDV’s primary ambition with this project was to offer buyers a great deal of choice in their living arrangement. Despite its simple rectangle shape, the building offers a high degree of diversity in apartment size ,color,orientation and configuration. To give the sense of organization and scale, the building was broken down into four large sections and the apartments were grouped into “neighborhoods” of between four and ten units of the same type. The interesting expression of colors and materials on the facades try to reflect the interior arrangement by giving each neighborhood a different exterior treatment.


MVRDV’s initial plan for Silodam included a variety of communal and public spaces to complement the residential component. Unfortunately, due to financial problems, many of those spaces were removed from the plan. Three notable remnants of that plan still remain. The most impressive one is a large wooden terrace designed for both residents and the public. It can be accessed by climbing the large wooden stairs that pass through corridors of the building.

Another thing I want to illustrated is the facades.The facades gives the sense of shipping containers representating the history context of the olf silodam.The exteriors are sampler of windows and wall materials,details and colors.The basic transparent reflective qualities are established by the use of glass but other materials include aluminum panels, reinforced cement, glass curtain walls, brick and painted steel.The use of bright colors, orange, blue, white , red and black ,reinforce the polychrome imagery and connected with the spirit of MVRDV designs which focus on comtemporary interpretation of housing.