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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Jon Henley in Amsterdam

‘What if we built our own?’: young Amsterdammers fight housing crisis with cooperative build

Apartment block on corner with wooden closed balconies and vines
An architect’s drawing of the cooperative housing project in Amsterdam, called De Torteltuin. Photograph: Natrufied Architecture

De Torteltuin, or “Dove Garden”, was born from an existential, if depressingly common, question. A group of young Amsterdammers, most still at university, looked into their futures and asked how they would ever afford to live in their own city.

“It was 2020, we were 22 or 23 years old,” said Iris Luden. “It was a dream. We were fantasising. What if we built our own place? We imagined a kindergarten, growing our own food … We got together every month to talk about it. But slowly, it happened.”

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