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DeFlat Kleiburg by XVW Architecteur in collaboration with NL Architects is a social housing adaptive reuse and modular renovation project of 2016 in the Netherlands, Amsterdam. While use before did serve as a severely dilapidated, 400-meter-long modernist prefab concrete housing block at risk of demolition, the transformation of 2016 provided 498 affordable "DIY" apartments and ground-floor local business units, maintaining the modernist framework while updating 45,000 m² of residential floorplates to support both horizontal and vertical flat combinations.

This project contributes to the social-ecological transformation by pioneering a radical "real-life idealism" model that saved one of the Netherlands' largest postwar modernist structures from demolition, avoiding an immense waste of embodied carbon. By executing a high-precision, low-cost structural overhaul—sandblasting the original concrete, decluttering the ground floor to create welcoming public entries, and leaving the interior fit-outs completely to the residents—the design established a deeply sustainable and socially diverse community of over 150 nationalities, winning the Mies van der Rohe Award for proving that modular circularity and community empowerment can defeat urban erasure.

City

Amsterdam

Country

Netherlands

Use Before

Housing

Use After

Housing, Renovation

Year

2016