Michiel Brinkman

Michiel Brinkman is notable for his Justus van Effen housing block complex in Spangen, which is a Rijksmonument, built in 1922.

[3] He studied at the 'Academie van Beeldende Kunsten en Technische Wetenschappen', nowadays called Willem de Kooning Academy, under Henri Evers.

A public street enters and leaves the perimeter hugging block through 6m high arches, the road forks at the facilities building.

The courtyard is broken up into a series public areas that ripple from small to large giving a dynamic to the external space.

All units consist of a living room, kitchen, toilet and three bedrooms, plus central heating which was a first for Dutch social housing, and a rubbish chute [2] The bovenstraat was reached by one of ten stairways and two goods lifts, which allowed tradesmen to bring their trolleys, which were very much a feature of 1920s South Holland, up to the front-doors.

[2] The neglected scheme was first renovated in 1985-1990, some maisonettes were knocked through to provide accommodation for larger families and the walls were rendered with a white stucco, and the detailed windows replaced with generic stock.

A second attempt led by Dutch architecture practices Molenaar & Co. and Hebly Theunissen, and a landscape architect Michael van Gessel, began in 2006 and was completed in 2012.

[5] The bovenstraat walkway concept, 'Streets in the sky', influential on Dutch architecture was developed further by Le Corbusier for his Unite d'Habitation in Marseilles, and later by Peter and Alison Smithson for Golden Lane Estate and Robin Hood Gardens, in London.