Wholesale and design office for fashion brand G-sus

The filling in of the eastern section of the canal Johan van Hasseltkanaal in Noth Amsterdam created space for a bussiness park. Claus & Kaan drew up an image-quality plan for the site and a company building for the trendy new clothing label G-sus has been realized here.

The lowest two storeys contain the company’s warehouse and distribution spaces. These spaces are accessible to lorries, thanks to two large concrete framed openings. A third, narrower opening forms the building’s entrance. In addition, all of the building’s walls are blank, apart from a few emergency exits, which are hidden from view. On the second storey, offices and facilities are grouped around a patio, which provides these spaces with sufficient daylight.

The façade of the warehouse consists of opaline polycarbonate on the inside and untreated wooden slats on the exterior, as a result of which daylight is filtered. Above this semi-transparent section, the façade is of precast concrete, so that the office storey looks like a solid block, with only a few low strips of fenestration providing a view of the surrounding area. Whereas during the day the concrete volume appears to rest on the wooden base, at night, when the interior is lit up, it appears to float above the fragile construction. This ‘inverted’ combination of wood and concrete is intended as a reference to the idiosyncretic design method of the clothing label G-sus. (ARCAM/BU)