Deconstructing Afrikahuis

text, photography, technical drawings, cement cast,
book stand, 3D printed volumes, collages

September - December 2024

My contribution to a group show of the Rietveld Academie’s Architectural Design Department, featuring spatial research and proposals that center Afrikahuis, a structuralist church in Amsterdam’s De Pijp.

Alien to the surrounding 19th century Amsterdam buildings, Joop van Stigt’s 1968 Afrikahuis both stands out and hides in plain sight.

This project compiles various tools designed to help navigate its concealed geometry. The ultimate goal is increasing the building’s visibility in the neighborhood.

First, I study the ground floor, the concrete skeleton that upholds the wooden church. For a precise approach, I remove its walls and ceiling to expose it to the public.

Then, I catalogue its constituent elements and their relationship. The focus becomes that of a lexicon of the building and how to decipher it.

Lastly, I abstract the volumes, applying structuralist dichotomies such as inside-outside, positive-negative, and ultimately, visible-invisible.

1) 3D printed negatives and positive of benches, columns or beams shown on site on for the group exhibiton Afrikahuis: Speculative Projects

2) selected page from booklet; floorplan, sections and elevations of Afrikahuis’ groundfloor

3) selcted pages from booklet; fieldnotes in English, Dutch & Spanish on the back of site photos

4). booklet on top of metal mesh stand, designed in the abstracted shape of a column

5) 2D shapes generated by the elements of the groundfloor; beams, columns, benches, collaged in various compositions