Masonry in a leading role

The masonry of the Amsterdam International Community School (AICS) is one of the big tastemakers of the new building on the A.J. Ernststraat. The executor of this extensive job is Bouwbedrijf Van Rooijen-Balk from IJsselstein. "Quite a challenging job," says project leader Klaas de Bruin, not without some pride. 

The challenge was not only in the three different formats of stone incorporated into the facades. De Bruin: "On the scaffolding were waalformaat, dikformaat and dubbelwaalformaat bricks, which, according to architect Mecanoo's design, were incorporated into the facades in a certain regularity. The second peculiarity is the division in height: the bottom three layers are masonry in butt jointless clay ear dressings. The upper layers are worked out in Flemish bond with patterns of protruding heads at the sports halls. This relief and the different layers were partly detailed out and partly our men had to figure this out on site." Leo de Lange, now a director of Van Rooijen-Balk for three years, says: "For example, the architect had determined a percentage of cantilevered bricks. That seems fine for the bricklayer, but this freedom means an additional task. It is no longer just bricklaying through." 

Agreement

Nevertheless, cooperation and information exchange with both architect and contractor were excellent. "That started with our quotes and calculations that we were allowed to make for the masonry and scaffolding, our two specialties," says De Lange. "The project manager of De Vries en Verburg still visited IJsselstein with the architect, and we also visited our project Narva Eiland in Amsterdam together. The architect was thus convinced of our qualities and with the contractor we were then able to agree on the price and our working method. I don't think we betrayed that confidence. It has become a beautiful building with our masonry in a leading role."