Stretch and Fold

Stretch and Fold describes itself as a yoga studio and seasonal cafe, and in practice it is an embodied yoga and movement studio, a seasonal café and a 20-metre rooftop pool sharing one terrace on the fifth floor of Papaverhof 71C, 1032 LX, on the roof of the Bob W aparthotel in Amsterdam-Noord.

The pool is open every day, 09:00 to 21:00, and you do not need a membership to swim: a poolside seat costs €12.50 per person for a 2.5-hour booking, and that pool pass is the only ticket most visitors need. The rooftop is adults only, 18 and over, for the pool and sauna. Getting there means crossing the IJ, so take metro 52 one stop from Centraal to Noorderpark and walk about 13 minutes, or take a free ferry. You cannot walk here from the city centre.

Detail	What to know
What it is	Embodied yoga and movement studio, seasonal café, 20 m rooftop pool, barrel sauna, treatment room
Address	Papaverhof 71C, 1032 LX Amsterdam. Fifth floor, on the Bob W roof
Neighbourhood	Buiksloterham, Amsterdam-Noord, across the IJ from Centraal
Pool	Open daily 09:00–21:00, 18+, heated until 1 October
Sauna	Mon–Wed 17:00–21:00, Thu–Sun 10:00–21:00, 18+
Cheapest way to swim	€12.50 pool pass with a poolside seat, no membership
Cheapest way to try a class	€35 introduction card, 5 credits, valid 2 weeks
Memberships	€50 to €175 a month, all with 10% off in the café
Nearest metro	Noorderpark, line 52, about a 13-minute walk
Booking	stretchandfold.nl · [email protected] · [email protected] for tables
Photos and schedule	Instagram, @stretchandfoldstudio

Where exactly is Stretch and Fold, and how do you find the entrance?

It is located on the fifth floor of Papaverhof 71C, and there is no sign on the street telling you that. The address belongs to the Bob W Amsterdam Noord aparthotel, part of the Republica development off the Papaverweg, and the rooftop wellness studio is an independent business sitting on top of it, which is why the hotel below describes it as an independent studio with its own charges. Walk into the Bob W building, take the lift to the fifth floor, and the terrace opens in two directions: turn left for the café, the terrace, the pool and the sauna; turn right for the yoga studio, the treatment room and workshops.

Dutch listings for the address will tell you to find the yogastudio on the dakterras, or the terras with the zwembad: the roof terrace with the swimming pool, all the same place. People do get lost here. A widely shared reel by the Dutch travel account Wanderlust opens by calling the place “not that easy to reach”, and the venue’s own listing spells out the lift-then-left-or-right routine because visitors need it. If you are meeting someone, agree on the café side rather than “the roof”. If you want to see the place before you commit to the crossing, the studio posts rooftop photos and its current schedule on Instagram as @stretchandfoldstudio.

How do you get to Papaverhof 71C from Amsterdam Centraal?

The fastest route is metro 52 from Amsterdam Centraal, one stop north to Noorderpark, then roughly a kilometre on foot, about 13 minutes. The two free ferries are slower on foot but far more pleasant, and they are free for pedestrians and cyclists. What you cannot do is walk from the canal belt: the canal ring stops at the water, Buiksloterham is on the far side of the IJ, and Amsterdam’s tram network does not cross it at all.

Route from Centraal	How it works	Time on foot at the Noord end
Metro 52 to Noorderpark	One stop north on the North/South line	About 13 minutes
Metro 52 to Noord	Two stops; check your map app for which is nearer your entrance	Longer than Noorderpark
Free ferry F3 to Buiksloterweg	From behind Centraal, runs 24 hours a day	15–20 minutes
Free ferry F4 to NDSM	From behind Centraal, roughly 06:30–23:45	15–20 minutes
By bike	Wheel onto any free ferry, then ride	A few minutes from either landing
By tram	Not possible. No tram line crosses the IJ into Noord	n/a
On foot from the centre	Not possible. The IJ is in the way; you need a ferry or the metro	n/a

Pay for the metro with a contactless bank card or phone, exactly as you would anywhere else on the network. Our OVpay guide explains the tap-in and tap-out rules and what the day cap costs. The ferries need no ticket and no tap at all. GVB buses do serve the surrounding Buiksloterham streets, but the stops here have been renumbered more than once, so check the GVB journey planner on the day rather than trusting an old listing.

Can you use the rooftop pool without a membership?

Yes. It is the first question on the venue’s own pool FAQ and the one most listings skip. Anyone over 18 can swim by buying a pool pass, €12.50 per person. The catch is that the pass is tied to where you sit, and one of the three options gets you no pool access at all.

How you book	Pool access	Cost
Poolside deck seat	Yes, for your full 2.5-hour reservation	€12.50 per person, added at booking, non-refundable
Other outdoor table on the terrace	Only if you buy a pass at the bar on the day	€12.50 per person when you buy it
Indoor seat in the café	No pool access on that visit	n/a
Booked sauna session	Yes, for the 50 minutes of your session	Included with the session
Member (Unlimited, Movement or Sauna)	Unlimited, but you still need an outdoor reservation	Free; the €12.50 becomes prepayment for food and drink

Terrace reservations run 2.5 hours and cannot be extended, because poolside seating is in short supply on warm days. If you want longer, the venue’s own suggestion is to book a sauna session and a poolside seat back to back, which gives you 50 minutes of pool time and then the full 2.5 hours. Walk-ins are welcome but a booking is safer in summer. Groups of more than eight cannot book online and should email [email protected].

Two practical rules worth knowing before you arrive: no glass is allowed in or around the pool, and you must wear your wristband while swimming and hand it back afterwards. Bring a towel or rent one at the bar for €4.

For context, the other well-known rooftop pool in the city sits at Soho House and is open only to members and hotel guests. This one is not: a €12.50 pass and an outdoor seat is the whole barrier.

When is the pool open, and is it heated?

The swimming pool is open every day from 09:00 to 21:00, and it is heated seasonally. The operator switches the heating off on 1 October, and describes what is left as more of a cold plunge. That single date is the most useful thing to know when planning a visit: a September swim and a November swim are two different activities in the same 20 metres of water.

Facility	Opening hours	Age limit
Rooftop pool	Every day, 09:00–21:00	18+
Sauna	Mon–Wed 17:00–21:00; Thu–Sun 10:00–21:00	18+
Yoga and movement studio	Classes through the day; see the live schedule	No stated limit
Café	Seasonal, and kitchen hours change; check before travelling	None

How does the rooftop sauna work?

It is a barrel sauna on the terrace, facing the NDSM side of the water. Sessions start on the hour and last 50 minutes, and every session includes pool access for its duration. You book either a communal session, where conversation is fine, or a silent one, where it is not. Community sessions take up to eight people. You can also reserve the sauna privately for up to ten people at €150 a session, four towels included.

One detail is easy to miss: a sauna booking includes the shaded lounge, not a seat on the sunny terrace. If you want to sit out in the sun afterwards, that is a separate terrace reservation. Check in with the sauna host in the café by the terrace doors, up to ten minutes before your slot. Lockers are there but you bring your own lock, and there are showers both inside and out.

The house rules are short: shower before you go in, sit on a towel, no oils of any kind, and if you are not wearing swimwear keep your lower body covered with a towel. Bring two towels if you can, one to sit on and one for afterwards. Sauna sessions can also be booked through ClassPass and Urban Sports Club as a standalone activity.

What do memberships and class credits cost?

Every membership includes 10% off in the café, and every one of them is sold in two versions: a cheaper one with a three-month minimum, and a flexible one you can cancel with a month’s notice. The Unlimited membership is the only one that gives full access to both the sauna and the pool with no monthly cap, and it drops to €138 a month if you commit to a year and pay upfront.

Membership	Per month	What is included	Commitment
Weekly	€50	4 movement classes a month	3-month minimum
Movement	€99	Unlimited classes, unlimited pool, 1 booked sauna a month	3-month minimum
Movement, flexible	€110	Same as above	None; 1 month’s notice
Sauna	€99	Unlimited sauna, unlimited pool, 1 class a month	3-month minimum
Sauna, flexible	€110	Same as above	None; 1 month’s notice
Unlimited	€150	Unlimited classes, sauna and pool	3-month minimum
Unlimited, flexible	€175	Same as above	None; 1 month’s notice
Unlimited, yearly	€138	Same as above	1 year, paid upfront

If you are not signing up for anything, buy credits instead. One credit buys one class or one sauna session, whichever you choose, and that flexibility is unusual for an Amsterdam studio.

Credit package	Price	Valid for	Cost per session
Introduction card, 5 credits	€35	2 weeks, one time only	€7
Single credit	€19	3 months	€19
5 credits	€85	3 months	€17
10 credits	€150	3 months	€15

The introduction card is the cheapest route in by a wide margin, at roughly €7 a session against €19 for a single credit, but the two-week window is short and you only get it once. If you are in Amsterdam for a fortnight, it is the obvious choice. If you are here for a weekend, a single credit or a €12.50 pool pass makes more sense. Gift cards come in €35, €50 and €100 and stay valid for a year after activation.

What kind of classes does the studio run?

The studio calls itself an embodied yoga and movement studio rather than a gym, and the distinction is real: there are no machines and no weights room here. The timetable spreads through the day and takes in Pilates, Yin Yang, Movement and Embodied Vinyasa among others. There is also a treatment room with therapists for massage and bodywork, booked separately.

Classes are taught in English by default, with teachers sometimes switching to Dutch when everyone in the room speaks it. Mats are provided, as are bolsters, blocks and meditation cushions, so you can turn up with nothing. Two house rules matter more than they sound: the studio door is locked at the class start time, so arrive at least five minutes early, and phones stay outside the studio in the changing area. Showers are available inside, opposite the bathroom, and outside by the pool.

You do not need a membership to take a class. Credits work, and so do ClassPass and OneFit, though the venue notes that places reserved for those partners are limited.

What happens if you cancel a class or a booking?

The cancellation terms are stricter than most drop-in studios and they are worth reading before you buy anything. The late-cancellation window is six hours before a class starts. Cancel inside it and you lose the credit. Do it, or fail to show up, more than twice in a month and a €10 fee is added on top.

Situation	Rule
Cancelling a class	Free up to 6 hours before; after that you lose the credit
Repeated late cancellations or no-shows	More than 2 a month adds a €10 fee
Pausing a membership	Possible after 3 months, one full month at a time, max 2 months a year
Cancelling a membership	One month’s notice; no partial refunds
Pool pass	Non-refundable once booked
Terrace reservation	2.5 hours, cannot be extended

What is the café like, and can you just come to eat?

You can. The café is a seasonal kitchen and bar open to anyone, membership or not, and plenty of people come up for brunch with no intention of swimming or stretching. It runs a rotating daily meal in the evenings alongside a short bar menu, and a kimchi toastie that the venue names specifically as the thing to eat after a sauna or a class. The kitchen is seasonal and locally sourced, and the bar covers coffee, natural wine, beer and cocktails.

Three things set it apart from a normal Amsterdam café. Dogs are welcome inside, on a lead, though you cannot leave one unattended while you take a class or a sauna. There are designated laptop tables, marked with a sign, and deliberately fewer of them at weekends so the room stays quiet. And an indoor table, as above, does not come with pool access, so book outside if swimming is the point. Groups of more than eight need to email [email protected] rather than booking online.

If you want dinner rather than brunch, Night Kitchen in Oud-West and the brown cafés of the Jordaan, Café Chris among them, are a different evening entirely, back on the south side of the water.

Can you hire the rooftop for a private event?

Yes, and the venue publishes real numbers for it, which most Amsterdam event listings do not. The café and the studio can each seat 50 people or hold 150 standing, and the whole rooftop takes between 15 and 300 depending on the format. The café has a full kitchen, a bar and a DJ booth with surround sound.

Space	Size	Capacity
Café	110 sq m	15–150 people; 50 seated
Yoga studio	120 sq m	10–50 people; 50 seated
Terrace, pool and sauna	130 sq m	15–100 people

Two answers here are unusual enough to be worth stating plainly. You may bring an external caterer, and you are allowed to bring your own food and drink, which is rare for a venue with its own kitchen.

And the noise limits are fixed by the roof’s residential neighbours: background music outside until 22:00, a party inside until 01:00 and outside until 21:00, with a 100-decibel ceiling. Private yoga, sound and movement sessions can be combined with a private sauna. The studio also runs its own programme of workshops, from sourdough baking to fermenting, and occasional day parties where the pool and sauna stay open all day.

Where can you park nearby?

There is an underground garage beneath the building, but it belongs to the aparthotel and is booked through its guest system, so it is not a public option. The two nearest public garages both involve a walk.

Where	Price	Distance
ParkBee at Hotel NH Amsterdam Noord	€18 a day	About 800 m, a 10-minute walk
Mosveld shopping centre garage	Free for the first 90 minutes, then €0.50 per 30 minutes, maximum €10 a day	About 1.3 km, a 15-minute walk

Better not to drive at all. Metro 52 plus a 13-minute walk beats both garages on time and on cost, and the ferry crossing is the better arrival.

Is it worth the trip if you are only visiting Amsterdam?

It depends on what you want from a morning. If you want a swim with a view over a working harbour and a decent breakfast afterwards, a €12.50 pool pass buys you something the city centre cannot offer at any price, and the crossing itself is one of the better free things to do in Amsterdam. If you want a two-hour spa complex, look elsewhere. There is one 20-metre pool, one barrel sauna and a café, and a sauna session is a 50-minute slot.

Two constraints decide it for most visitors. The pool and sauna are 18 and over, so this is not a family outing. And after 1 October the pool is unheated, which turns a summer plan into a cold-water one. In summer, book ahead; on a hot Saturday the poolside seats go. If a paid swim is not the plan, the city’s parks cost nothing, and our guide to the best picnic spots in Amsterdam covers where to sit and where you can legally light a barbecue.

You can also sleep underneath it. The Bob W aparthotel occupies the building, so the rooftop is a lift ride from the bedrooms, though the studio is a separate business and its charges are separate too. If you are making a day of Noord, the NDSM wharf is along the same waterfront, and Nxt Museum and Oedipus Brewing are both in the same corner of Noord. Our guide to Noord covers the rest.

How did a yoga studio end up on a hotel roof in Noord?

It started as a pop-up. In June 2023 the founder, Tash, opened a temporary Stretch and Fold studio in a warehouse behind Oedipus Brewing, elsewhere in Noord. It worked well enough that she and two long-standing students, Martin and Derek, who had been taking her classes and retreats since 2020, went looking for something permanent together. When the rooftop above the new Bob W building came up, they took it.

That history explains the shape of the place. The three strands, studio, café and water, were built to sit on one terrace rather than bolted together afterwards, which is why a class, a sauna and lunch are one booking flow and one 10% café discount. The studio sums itself up in three words, yoga, food and community, and you will find that ordering reflected in how the roof is laid out. The building underneath is designed along similar lines: the Republica development generates its own energy, collects waste for biofuel and carries green roofs, and the rooftop itself runs on solar with rainwater collection and local catering.

The name is a bread term. Stretch and fold is what you do to sourdough between rises, which is also roughly what the studio thinks a body needs, and the café does in fact run sourdough workshops.

Is the rooftop accessible?

The building has a lift serving all floors, and the venue’s own listing records the space as wheelchair accessible with a wheelchair accessible toilet. Toilets are gender-neutral and there is Wi-Fi throughout. What is not documented anywhere public is how the pool itself is entered, so if that matters, ask before you book. On that note, Stretch and Fold does not publish a phone number: it runs on email, and which address you use matters. [email protected] covers memberships, classes, the sauna and pausing or cancelling; [email protected] covers tables, brunch, dinner and groups over eight; [email protected] covers private hire.

Frequently asked questions