Architecture of AppropriationArchitecture of Appropriation

This office building was squatted by a refugee collective in 2015, which was later legalized following an innovative economic model, allowing for a durable transformation.

In October 2015 a section of the refugee collective We Are Here squatted an office building on a remote business park beside Amsterdam's A10 ring road. We Are Here consists of refugees and migrants whose application for an official status in the Netherlands has been rejected and who cannot return to their country of origin, yet are not allowed to work and cannot access regular housing. To highlight this, the group squatted an empty church building in Amsterdam's Bos en Lommer neighborhood in 2012, dubbing it the Vluchtkerk (Refuge Church). Since then the group has occupied more than 50 buildings across the city.

The Vluchtmaat is the only building squatted by We Are Here whose occupation was legalized shortly after. A number of volunteers involved with the group set up Stichting Noodzaak, a foundation to offer forms of 'social management' for unoccupied buildings. The foundation signed a two year contract with the owner and together with the refugee group divided the largely open-plan office space inside the two storey building into small rooms for the inhabitants. A number of spaces are let out to creative entrepreneurs, whose financial contribution is used to pay the owner for utilities and insurance.