Designed with the architectural history of the tiny building in mind, SWEETS reuses Amsterdam’s industrial heritage by transforming bridge houses into stand-alone hotel suites with unique interiors that fuse contemporary with historic fabric.
For centuries, bridge houses found dotted around Amsterdam housed the city’s bridge keepers, who were tasked with opening bridges for passing water traffic. The city’s bridge houses date between 1673 and 2009, and serve as an anthology of the city’s various architectural styles over time. Many were in fact designed by famed Dutch architects, such as Henrik Petrus Berlage and Pieter Lodewijk Kramer. The era of the bridge house came to an abrupt end however 2012, when the municipality of Amsterdam decided to centralize bridge control, making the bridge houses redundant.
Given their compact size and prime positions on the Amsterdam canals, SWEETS came up with the idea of giving these industrial buildings a second life as hotel suites. As small as 10.5m2, the tiny bridge houses are reimagined into 2-person hotel suites with sleeping, showering and kitchen facilities – a particular challenge given that the bridge houses were not designed for people to live in.
In undertaking the transformation, the interior design team of SWEETS researched the history of each bridge house extensively. ‘Design picnics’ would take place, in which the team and all involved partners would decide which elements of a particular bridge house to retain, and which could be played with.
Further informing the designs, the team researched 17th-century Dutch traditions and the use of materials and colours. This influence balanced out with contemporary elements.
