Kindercampus Zuidas allocated new site in Ravel district

According to current plans, the new school building will be taken into use in August 2024. In the period from 2023 to 2035, we will be building around 1,350 homes in Ravel – between AFC and De Boelelaan – mainly for families with children. In addition to Kindercampus Zuidas, other amenities will also be added in the future, including childcare facilities, hospitality and catering, and shops.

Despite the fact that Kindercampus Zuidas will soon be centrally located in a child-friendly neighbourhood, its location will not be changing much. The school is already located in the Ravel area, around 50 metres from its ultimate site. ‘It’s a great milestone that the school will stay here and we’ll be getting a brand-new building that caters for the needs of today’, says the director of Kindercampus Zuidas, Miriam Heijster. The Kindercampus is part of a wider concept. ‘We aim to provide challenging primary education and childcare for Dutch-speaking children and for children whose first language at home is not Dutch. Discovery, exploration, and learning by play are central tenets of its approach. We will make sure that this profile is reflected spatially in the building’s design. We also believe it’s important that there will be space outside for building huts, for example, as is currently the case. Plus, we’d like the area immediately around the school not to look too neat and tidy, but to invite play.’

The Kindercampus Zuidas is the responsibility of the Stichting Openbaar Onderwijs aan de Amstel. The agreement between this education foundation and the City of Amsterdam concerns the exact location and the integration of the new accommodation for the Kindercampus Zuidas primary school within the overall urban design. These agreements were recorded in a declaration of intent on 17 December 2020. Although official decision-making on the new building is still to take place, the letter marks an important step in the development of the school. ‘This kind of letter actually announces the start of the entire process for developing the new school building’, explains Zuidas project manager Thijs Koolmees. ‘We have established that we intend to do this together. But there is a whole process that needs to happen before construction starts.’ The zoning plan for the Ravel residential district is currently open for consultation. Once that has been officially approved, the school administration board will select an architect to come up with a design that is suitable for the education at Kindercampus Zuidas and the Ravel district.

Work to prepare the land for construction will start later this year. By then, Valley (in Beethovenstraat) will be completed and we can lay the final new field of artificial turf for AFC. We will then remove the old football pitch and can take away the unnecessary cables and pipes.