Designing the SocialDesigning the Social

This large industrial complex in the middle of Amsterdam has been squatted on two occasions and has been legalized as a creative incubator space since many years.

In the early 1980s, a group of squatters briefly occupied a large former printworks built around a 19th-century church in Amsterdam's Plantage neighbourhood. After their eviction, the complex was temporarily a school before becoming vacant for several years. In 1998, squatters retook possession of the site. Since many squatters in Amsterdam were facing eviction at the time, the new inhabitants started a campaign to legalise their premises and living arrangements to secure the building in the long term.

After a series of negotiations, the group purchased the complex in collaboration with the municipality's newly established office for creative incubators and took it off the market using a leasehold construction. Following the legalisation, the tenants started to renovate and transform the building, fostering social interaction among its users by, for instance, adding internal windows that created spatial relations and connections. They also constructed affordable studios, workshops and a café-restaurant. In addition, the enclosed church was restored to its original condition and became a cultural venue. Plantage Dok has since developed into an important meeting place within Amsterdam's subculture.

Function: A live-work building with a cultural venue inside a former church, multifunctional spaces, café with a stage, artist residency, and 30 studios and workspaces for artists, collectives and social initiatives.