Interior architect Ramin Visch is a familiar figure at the Westergasfabriek, the former gasworks complex in Amsterdam. He designed the first interior for Het Ketelhuis, a cinema on the site, and this summer he is to undertake its refurbishment. The cinema’s proprietor, Rick Woertman, called on Visch for his new espresso bar as well. The designer left the original architecture of the monumental Westelijk Meterhuis (Western Metering Building) intact and inserted a detached sculptural box which embraces all the specified functions.

In the field of interior architecture, we can broadly speaking distinguish two types of designer. One kind concentrates on seduction, on creating a theatrical decor and evoking a specific atmosphere. No means are eschewed to achieve this. The other type creates an interior that is difficult to recognize as such, for the design places itself at the service of the architectonic space and endeavours to enhance its quality and the experience it offers to the greatest possible degree. Ramin Visch, who trained at the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, takes a position midway between these two outlooks. He is a designer with a strongly architectural orientation, who would never descend to mere stylistic devices intended to seduce and overwhelm the visitor. Instead he focuses his attention on preserving and respecting the existing architectural quality.

Visch has been occupied with two commissions on the transformed gasworks site in Amsterdam West. Each assignment concerns the conversion of a nineteenth-century industrial building to house a new function: a cinema in the case of the former boiler house (Het Ketelhuis) and an espresso bar in that of the metering building (Westelijke Meterhuis). Both buildings are listed for preservation. The espresso bar, called the Espressofabriek (”Espresso Factory”) is now ready.

The two conversions show the same approach. A new volume, which encloses all the main functions, is inserted into the existing space as a kind of sculptural box. The box is explicitly separated from the existing architectural fabric and differs distinctly from it in the architectural means employed. The authentic industrial architecture and its typical structural features remain entirely intact and one hundred percent visible.

In each case, a demanding programme of functions has been packed into the new volume. The Espressofabriek, for instance, has a floor area of only 52 square metres. The box encloses toilets, a bar, storage space and a staircase to the roof. The roof itself is occupied by chairs and tables. The relatively large height of the Meterhuis roof made it possible to create a second storey beneath it.


Project details

* Project Name: Espressobar ‘de Espressofabriek’
* Client: Rick W. Woertman
* Project Type: Architectural design
* Principal Designer/s: Ramin Visch
* Design Team: Ramin Visch, Tobias Cassel, Femke Poppinga
* Contractor/s: Dhr. M. Kallebach
* Date of commencement of project: May 2005
* Date of completion of project: Sept 2006
* Location of site: Amsterdam
* Site Area: 58 m2
* Built-up Area: 75 m2
* Cost of Construction/Execution: 60,000 euro