W
hen interior design firm Framework
Studio cofounder Thomas Geerlings
and his wife Danielle first met, they
dreamt of living in one of Amsterdam’s
canal houses near the Amstelveld
square. They finally realised that
dream early in 2017 when the pair
stumbled upon a ruinous property that proved irresistible.
“When you do projects for yourself, your first decisions are
emotionally driven,” Geerlings says. “We saw the place for five
minutes, fell in love with it and decided to buy it without having any
real technical knowledge behind it. We assumed we’d manage to
keep the beams, for example, but they turned out to be completely
rotten along with pretty much everything else spread over all five
floors — we basically had to go back to the beginning.”
Luckily, Amsterdam’s archive holds almost all the original
drawings of listed buildings, providing a comprehensive map for
the pair to work from. After scrutinising these plans, they set about
renovating the house in their own way, combining contrasting
styles that cleverly manage to trick the eye while seeking “beautiful
imperfections” in everything. Geerlings explains how the design
process developed based on two key factors. First, he wanted
to conserve this historic relic, a former warehouse dating back to
1896 with all its idiosyncrasies — not least its tall and narrow
structure with a footprint of little more than 50 square metres
spread across five storeys. Second, he had to assess how to turn the
dilapidated warehouse into a comfortable family home for two
boisterous young children.
“I don’t like industrial or loft spaces. They just don’t do it for me,”
Geerlings says. “I like unfussy, unfinished details, and I wanted the
outer shell to be true to the original building, adding the bare
minimum of technical detailing inside and doorways to make it
a comfortable environment. Inside, I kept it in tone-on-tone with
greens and greys, layering colours and textures and rounding off the
angles. I see design as like the composition of a painting — all these
components have to talk to each other. Then you have something
really interesting going on.”
Inside, the house is arrestingly elegant but with an easygoing,
unaffected atmosphere. The floors mix warm oak boards with
emerald-hued slabs of marble; varying shades of green combine
seamlessly with raw cement walls while curvaceous edges add
softness to the space. ››