At the invitation of the Rochdale housing corporation, we reflected on the renovation of the Bijlmer blocks Geldershoofd and Gravestein, the former Gliphoeve.

Our vision distinguishes five scales: the city, the ensemble, the building, the architectural fragment and the dwelling. On all these scales, you can think about improving the position of the buildings on the housing market.

Obviously, sustainability is an important criterion. As a general strategy, we proposed to give labour priority over material. In concrete terms, our proposal was not to demolish the window frames and concrete parapets, but to repair them. Just the demolition, removal and destruction of some 15 km¹ of concrete is at odds with sustainable construction.

We also recommended that efforts be made to compartmentalise the buildings, with the bottom three layers being suitable for adding maisonettes and ground-floor/upper-floor flats with doors to the street.