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Wilhelmina lock

This was the first “Social Sofa” in Zaanstad. It was officially unveiled in 2020 by the counsil of the province of North-Holland and Heijmans Builders, who jointly commissioned it to commemorate their (not altogether seemless) cooperation on the renovation of the adjacent Wilhelmina lock. That is why the word “Wilhelminasluis” is featured on the back of the sofa. It was designed by local artist Olivier Rijcken and it took him and a team of volunteers some 350 hours to complete the mosaic work (30.000 pieces).

- Social Sofa logo -

- Ontwerptekening - — - Draft for the design of social sofa -

Social Sofa — - Volunteers at work in October 2020 -

- De meeuw is al bijna af - — - The seagull is almost finished -

- Achterzijde Wilhelminasluis Sofa - — - The back of the sofa at the Wilhelminasluis -

The idea behind the Social Sofa project is to help people meet and communicate by providing benches in strategic places, in order to enhance a feeling of togetherness. The basic design of this heavy concrete structure shaped like a “chaise longue” was done by Karin Buers, who started the project with 23 sofas in the city of Tilburg in 2006. ‘To bring people in from the social cold, we came up with these sofas to turn the street into a cosy living room,’ she states.