Editor's Choice Winner of the LILA 2022 in Residential Housing

Dune Roof

designed by Buro Harro /

Location / Amsterdam — The Netherlands — Type / Gardens — Roofs — Built / 2021 — Published on February 7, 2022

Winner of the LILA 2022 in Residential Housing

Buro Harro envisioned an entirely artificial little piece of landscape with subtle humour and incredible craftsmanship. The landscape of the dutch dunes, with its vegetation, essentially acts as a small biodiversity generator. Water retention is hidden under the sand on the roof, and all the necessary technicalities are nicely put out of sight. The wooden hut gives it a relaxed, ‘holiday-ish’ mood. It is a ‘fragment’, a pocket landscape that offers more than enough clues that will transport you to a beach. The wind comes as the magic dust that makes this sandy roof garden come to life as one can be drawn into the feeling of being in the dunes … while taking a swim! Witty and smart!

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On the roof of this nature-inclusive building block in the heart of Amsterdam, you can swim in between the dunes. No matter what, the wind blows high up in the sky. That inspired us to bring in the ultimate landscape to enjoy with stormy weather: the dunes. With wind-blown pine trees and lots of indigenous (and sometimes rare!) plants from the dunes that are made for these rare and harsh circumstances.

In the middle of this water-absorbing dune landscape lies a swimming pool, a bamboo – wooden terrace, and a beach pavilion, from where you can enjoy this surrealistic roof landscape under all conditions. Take the stairs or elevator and end up in a completely different word. On top of the the roof, in the middle of the city. Here, bees buzz, seagulls cry and the background noise of the city is like the rustling of the sea. Holidays, every day.

In this building people and the other nature live together. The former city floor is lifted and turned into a small patch of nature, the facades that are inhabited by plants, birds, insects ánd humans are extra. A piece urban landscape where both people and birds, bees, bats, butterflies live side by side. That way by building the world doesn’t become smaller, but bigger. We multiply landscapes!