Platform on civil engineering, underground infrastructure, energy, construction equipment & construction machinery
When the City of Amsterdam tied the knot in 2017 and partnered with Max Bögl & Partners for the renewal of the station area on the center side of Amsterdam Central Station, one of the most high-profile and complex infrastructure projects in the Netherlands began. The goal of the project: to make the entire area clearer and more attractive.
The work: expanding the water surface and realizing a new, underground bicycle storage facility, good for 7,000 bicycles, renewing streetcar tracks and stops and making them suitable for people with disabilities, and ensuring that the historic site in front of the central station becomes a breath of fresh air for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users. Admittedly a titanic job for Max Bögl & Partners, but the cooperating companies are successfully carrying out the work. The key word? Cooperation. Henk Jan Zoer, project manager The Entrance at Max Bögl & Partners, talks about it.
"Anyone who knows Amsterdam knows what the situation was like before the central station. Always busy with people entering or leaving the station, lots of tourists, lots of bicycle traffic, streetcars coming and going. Since 2018 it has been car-free, but the crowded square meters only seem to increase. And that in a limited space," Zoer opens the conversation. "The renewal of the station area should start to create an orderly, more livable situation for everyone. The complexity of the work is caused not only by the rerouting of people moving around, but also by the interests of surrounding stakeholders and the underground infrastructures. This is why the City of Amsterdam clearly put the focus in the call for tenders on project and environment management. Not what we build is complex, but where we build is complex. This challenge has been put to the market in order to cause as little disruption as possible to stakeholders."
Max Bögl & Partners won the tender on the basis of the plans for approaching the project. "In order to ensure the best possible functionality, we have phased everything very clearly, divided into manageable work sections. In the process, many nuisance-reducing measures will be taken.
We had already involved the largest partners in the tender so that everyone could contribute ideas on the right approach. This allowed us to make a flying start," Zoer outlines.
Within Max Bögl & Partners, the partner idea prevails. Max Bögl itself specializes in concrete and steel construction, and within the scope of the project group sat the wet infrastructure, ground level, track work and cable and pipeline work, among others. "For each discipline, we carefully considered which parties were the best fit, in terms of activities and work culture. To forge these parties into a single entity, management is crucial. After all, you have a collective and individual interest as a participating partner, so the cooperation must be excellent. To make communication flow smoothly, all parties have access to the same software. Thus, everyone has access to the same, updated data. Think of things like 3D models, a document management system, requirements management databases, et cetera. For some parties, it was the first time they were going to work that way."
The Entrance will be executed under UAV-GC D&C contract. According to Zoer, that requires a certain attitude and the right division of roles. "If you have been working together like this for four years - since the tender - you build a strong bond between you and in most cases half a word is enough. This is just as well, because the contract sum is now much higher. The additional scope consists of numerous changes that demand a lot of flexibility from us and our partners. You have to be able to cope with the fact that the nature of the work keeps changing," says Zoer.
Where does this dynamism come from, we ask. Zoer explains: "Partly because of the stakeholders, who have additional wishes, or where certain interests play a role. Also because of surprises that we encounter underground, because predecessors have apparently improvised with cables and pipes that are not shown on drawings or are in a different place than the drawing indicates. In short: we must "make the impossible possible," and we usually can. Traditional builders would have waved the white flag here a long time ago. However, by being flexible and working together solution-oriented, we don't let anything stop us. We are quite proud of that. We work with a clear goal in mind toward the finish line."
In Amsterdam, you only get a permit for works in public space if a BLVC plan has been submitted and approved. Zoer: "In that plan, we talk about the accessibility, livability, safety and communication surrounding the work. Our issue here is constantly how to ensure that within a work area there is enough space for all disciplines to do their work properly and around it all modes of transport can still find their way. This requires smart thinking to arrange everything as well as possible for the surroundings, within the field of tension that this creates multiple small work areas. How do you phase something like that? And how do you start over, if there are changes? There is only one solution: start roughly and then continually zoom in on the subject matter. This creates an internal dynamic between technology and environment that demands that we keep consulting with each other. How much space do we take? How do we create an appropriate workspace with as much safety as possible for employees and people in the environment? Everything passes the review when drawing up such plans."
For The Entrance, a lot of material is needed and also needs to be removed. In order to aim for less disruption, the choice was made to have supply and removal take place as much as possible outside rush hour. "We have also chosen to transport by water wherever possible, just like in the past. This prevents heavy axle loads on those lovely little bridges. But, like everything else in this project, transport by water also has its own challenges. After all, there are various 'wet stakeholders' in and around the water. The dynamics remain there as well," Zoer explains.
Zoer explains that in addition to good internal cooperation, external cooperation is also very important. "There are formal stakeholders in this project, parties who, for example, deal with quay walls (the municipality) and the streetcar (GVB). We are also in consultation with these, which not only demands a lot from our people with management functions, but also from our people on the construction site. After all, they also have to deal with these stakeholders."
At the time of this writing, hard work is underway on the underground bicycle parking lot. "We just drained the construction pit and started the structural work. The construction pit measures about 100 meters by 85 meters, just a huge and impressive hole. In addition, we have now moved the shipping lines to allow for the construction of the bicycle parking in the middle bowl, we have had three streetcar traffic outages and thus completed three sub-areas in terms of cables and pipes, ground level layout and track. Another great milestone this year was the commissioning of the Cuyper stairs. "
In conclusion, Zoer says, "Everyone working on this project within Max Bögl & Partners is enormously proud of what we are doing. The very complexity of the work makes us face the facts every day when it comes to the importance of good cooperation and communication. I am convinced that when everything is finished, we will be talking about this work for a long time to come."
Max Bögl Nederland B.V.'s partners in project The Entrance are:
- Akson
- Everywhere
- Count & Cooper
- Beens Group
- GEO2 Engineering
- Goudappel Coffeng
- Installation Technique Louwer
- Iv-Infra
- Knipscheer Infrastructure
- Kummler+Matter
- Van den Heuvel
- wUrck
Louwers Mediagroep
Schatbeurderlaan 6
6002 ED Weert
© 1987 - 2025 Louwers Media Group.
