Award-Winning Luxury Project on Amsterdam Waterfront

Posted 17 July 2024

Radyus markets Residential Building of the Year 2022

‘Sluishuis’ (translates to Lockside House) is a residential experience on popular Amsterdam’s waterfront. Its apartments on lake ‘IJ’ offer a unique living experience on, above, and at the water front!

Prime Location

This location is called ‘IJburg’. It’s a residential neighbourhood in Amsterdam, located to the east of the city centre. It is actually a group of artificial islands situated in Lake ‘IJ’ and are connected by bridges to each other and mainland Amsterdam. IJburg is known for its modern architecture, waterfront homes, and a mix of residential, commercial, and recreational spaces. It’s designed to provide a high quality of life with plenty of green spaces, water sports, and other outdoor activities, making it an attractive place for families and professionals alike. Shortly after completion, Architectenweb, the Dutch platform for architects, named Sluishuis Residential Building of the Year. A few weeks later, Sluishuis also won the Property Awards in London.

VORM and BESIX RED join forces

The story of Sluishuis began in 2016. To design this unique building, real estate developers VORM and BESIX RED collaborated with architects Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) from Denmark and the Dutch firm Barcode Architects. The municipality of Amsterdam was impressed by the design and declared the collaboration the winning tender. Marie-Fleur Vandenabeele of BESIX RED and Caroline Samson of VORM were jointly responsible for the sale of the 73 owner-occupied flats and 34 berths.

Sales challenge

Sales was a challenge because Sluishuis is not a simple project. The building has many different types of flats. For example, it was not easy for potential buyers to understand how a flat or appartment building is positioned in relation to the sun. In addition, the flats are in a higher price segment, up to €1.4 million, which means a smaller target group. – Marie-Fleur Vandenabeele

Yes, and people looking for a flat in Amsterdam should consider IJburg as a location first. Not everyone knows how nice it is to live on IJburg. The sale of berths, starting at €272,495, also started later. You buy a berth if you are sure you will get a permit for your boat. After all, Amsterdam is a water city. To do so, your boat’s concept must first be fully approved. This is a lengthy application procedure and a time-consuming process. – Caroline Samson

Collaboration with Radyus Marketing Agency

To boost sales, we partnered with Radyus Marketing Agency, expert in marketing real estate, new construction, and large construction projects a.o.

Marie-Fleur – VORM was already working with Fundament All Media. They introduced us to Radyus Marketing Agency. Looking back, we are very positive about the cooperation. The communication went smoothly. We received regular progress reports, and any questions we had were answered quickly.

Caroline adds: The advertising budget was used effectively and as efficiently as possible. If we had our own ideas for the online advertising campaigns, we received clear feedback on their feasibility.

Online Campaign Results

Even before completion, almost all flats and berths had been sold. Caroline says: ‘The houseboat moorings are almost all under option, and there are still four flats for sale. While we are now dealing with the crisis in the housing market, the pandemic earlier hampered the sale of the flats.’

Marie-Fleur adds, ‘The pandemic made it difficult to organise walk-in days, for instance. So, we launched a series of webinars in collaboration with Fundament. Later, together with Radyus, we launched a campaign for viewing afternoons with time slots. That too went very quickly and smoothly. Thanks to that campaign, we received quite a lot of registrations.’

Caroline continues: ‘I was just at VORM when I started the Sluishuis project. It was very instructive to see how the social media campaign was rolled out, responding to different phases of the customer journey. A whole atmosphere was created around it through social media. In the end, we had a remarkable number of followers and interaction on the social channels.’ So, will there be a second project? ‘Not that we know of,’ says Marie-Fleur, ‘but that would be great fun,’ adds Caroline.