engineering

Sluishuis

Sluishuis is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sluishuis rather than just read about it. In short: The Sluishuis (Dutch for 'sluice house') is an apartment building in IJburg, a neighbourhood on artificial islands in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The building, which opened on 13 July 2022, was designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, an architecture firm based in Copenhagen and New York City, in collaboration with Rotterdam-based Barcode Architects.

Key takeaways

Sluishuis belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sluishuis to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sluishuis from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Sluishuis (Dutch for 'sluice house') is an apartment building in IJburg, a neighbourhood on artificial islands in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The building, which opened on 13 July 2022, was designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, an architecture firm based in Copenhagen and New York City, in collaboration with Rotterdam-based Barcode Architects. The Sluishuis is a sustainable building, with solar panels installed on the roof providing the energy for the lighting and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning in the complex. Its courtyard has a publicly accessible jetty where boats can moor.

Origin and construction In early 2016, the City of Amsterdam held a competition for an "image-defining" building on the Haringbuisdijk, at the entrance to Steigereiland, opposite the houses of Dutch architect Marlies Rohmer. The proposal was for a residential building of at least 35,000 square metres (380,000 sq ft), with a space for houseboats. The winning design came from a collaboration between two architecture firms: Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the company of Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and based in Copenhagen and New York City, and the Rotterdam-based company Barcode Architects. They designed a 52-metre-tall (171 ft) building with angled cut-off façades and a large opening in the front, through which boats can pass. A walkway was also designed around the building. BIG previously had used the shape of a closed building block where a corner was "raised" for the VIA 57 West building in New York City, on which they based the design of the Sluishuis as a starting point. The unusual shape of the building posed significant construction challenges. The structural engineer, the Brussels-based construction group BESIX, decided to build two "backbones" in the form of concrete walls nearly 0.5 metres (1 ft 8 in) thick, from which the apartment units were suspended. During the construction, a temporary reclaimed island was used. The piles—vertical structural elements of a building's deep foundation—were driven 60 metres (200 ft) into the ground. The exterior of the building was clad with sheets of aluminium. Construction began on 18 December 2018. The building was originally scheduled to open in early 2022 but opened on 13 July 2022.

Use and environment

The Sluishuis has 442 apartment units; 369 of them, mainly in the middle segment, are for renting and the rest are on sale. The size of the residential units ranges from 40 to 180 square metres (430 to 1,940 sq ft). Around the entire building is a publicly accessible jetty where there is space for 34 houseboats. The Sluishuis is built over the water of the IJ, allowing boats to moor at a dock of the complex. The unusual shape makes the building appear to float above the water. The façade of the building features two staircases that lead past the terraces to the roof, where there is a walkway and a view of the city. Any public access to the building is managed by the property owners' association of the building. The City of Amsterdam has mandated that the stairs must be open to the general public at least 80 days a year. The Sluishuis is a sustainable building, with an Energy Performance Coefficient (EPC) of 0.00. On the roof, solar panels and solar thermal collectors have been installed; the solar panels provide the energy for the LED lighting and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning in the complex. The building has a heat pump system and its windows have been fitted with triple-insulated glass.

Gallery

References

External links Media related to Sluishuis (Amsterdam) at Wikimedia Commons

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sluishuis

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sluishuis claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sluishuis before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sluishuis ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sluishuis

In research: Sluishuis appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sluishuis in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sluishuis is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Apartment buildings in the Netherlands, Bjarke Ingels Group buildings, Buildings and structures completed in 2022, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sluishuis outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sluishuis in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sluishuis means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sluishuis out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sluishuis in simple terms?

Why does Sluishuis matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sluishuis?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sluishuis.