Architecture Portfolio
Emiel van der Vlies Selected works 2015 - 2021
Last Edit 21st of July 2021
Dear reader, my name is Emiel van der Vlies and in June 2021 I obtained Cum Laude my master’s degree in architecture from the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment in Delft. Between my bachelor and master studies I gained my first practical experience by doing two internships, both in middle-sized architectural offices. Throughout the years I developed myself as a independent designer, who doesn’t step away from taking in a position. In addition, I’m never afraid to get my hands dirty. Model making and experimenting are activities I value a lot. They always form and formed my motives to start this architectural journey.
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Curriculum Vitae Contact Emiel van der Vlies (+31) 6 57 80 12 02 emiel.van.der.vlies@upcmail.nl Mendelssohnstraat 2 2625 AC, Delft 05/12/1996
Education
Skills
Pre-education Emmauscollege Rotterdam Gymnasium (Nature & Technology)
2009-2015
Bachelor TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Minor: ‘House of the Future’
2015-2018
2017-2018
Autodesk Revit
Master TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment Track: Architecture Grad. Studio: ‘Methods of Analysis and Imagination’
2019-2021
Rhinoceros
Adobe Photoshop Adobe Illustrator Adobe Indesign Adobe Premiere Pro (Film) Autodesk Autocad
V-Ray Enscape Google Sketchup Archicad Fruity Loops Studio (Audio)
Work Experience
Model making
Maria Haag Architectuur Working student
2017-2018
VRP Architecten Working student
2018
Ector Hoogstad Architecten Architecture Intern (Rotterdam)
2018-2019
De Zwarte Hond Architecture Intern (Rotterdam)
2019
Photography
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Contents
‘Wat water achterliet’
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Terschelling (The Netherlands), Wierschuur
‘Against the Alienation of Belgrade’s Bohemian Quarter’
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Belgrade (Serbia), Skadarlija
‘House of Language’
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Brussels (Belgium), Molenbeek
Renovation Cluster Zuid
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Leiden (The Netherlands), Faculty of Humanities
Samuel de Zee
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Leiden (The Netherlands), Courtyard Doezastraat
Jean Prouvé, Demountable Houses
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Model Study, three different types
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‘Wat water achterliet’
Terschelling, Wierschuur TU Delft MSc2 Studio, Delta Shelter 07_2020
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To design a shelter on Terschelling, one of the Islands in the northern Netherlands, I took the chance to go back to my personal memories, to the times I used to build a shelter myself. Why did we do that? Why do we need to do that and what was so satisfactory about that? These thoughts and questions, combined with a selection of poems and contextual information about Terschelling’s nature formed the base to design a shelter close to the original Wierschuur on the Island; outside the dikes.
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Floor plan - Ground floor 8
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Floor plan - First floor 10
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A little sandy pathway leads to the tower. The shelter is placed just behind the higher grasses, where it is a bit lower. The toilet, which is secluded from the rest of the shelter is connected to the more wild and rough part, where little streams could be recognized. Through the textures the differences between the polder structure and the wild, rough delta structure became more visible. Ariving from the dyke the shelter can be recognized from its high tower in which the library is positioned. A single ladder leads one to the top of the tower providing a wide overview of Terschelling, showing water on both sides. Furthermore the sleeping nests with its pitched roof and slanted windows, the
stairs to the terrace and the door straight to the kitchen can be identified from afar. The floorplan is based upon a route around a little unprotected courtyard which is opened to water and wind on all sides. During high tide or heavy rainfall the water takes over the inner space of the shelter, as a result that the circulation and sequences of spaces within the shelter are emphasized, while forcing one to use the shelter in one particular way. Next to this the different functions are specifically oriented according to the position of the sun throughout the day and year. Consequently, the user follows the shelter and his daily activities are logically scripted from waking up to going to sleep.
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Site plan + Section - Low tide situation
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5m
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Site plan + Section - High tide situation
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‘Against the Alienation of Belgrade’s Bohemian Quarter’ Belgrade (Serbia), Skadarlija TU Delft Graduation Studio, Methods of Analysis and Imagination 07_2021
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Skadarlija block, also known as Belgrade’s Bohemian Quarter, has gone through a major change the last decade. It is in this block, similar to what happened along the Sava and Danube river with the ‘Splavovi’, where spontaneous citizens’ initiatives created a vivid environment in which locals together responded to their needs and desires. Due to the bankruptcy of the former Bajloni Brewery (B.I.P) in 2006, multiple empty spaces came available. These spaces were later on filled in with a large number of cafes and bars, clubs, cultural and creative centers, as well as concert halls with large, small and improvised stages.
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1 Jedno Mesto Restaurant
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6 Parking Garage (reuse)
11 -Unknown-
2 Kafe Karakter
7 Chimney (old brewery)
12 Water tower (old brewery)
3 Ljubimac
8 Elektropionir Klub
13 Dim Bar
4 Polet Bar
9 Bluz I Pivo Bar
14 Velika Skadarlija Restaurant
5 Klub Dvoristance
10 Parking Garage (reuse)
15 Pivara Bar
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Current Bars & Restaurants + New Design In the image above the current bars and restaurants are visible, as well as the new design, reacting on its surroundings. Many of the bar owners used to have a place located in the Savamala district until it was demolished in the beginning of 2016, paving the way for the controversial
Belgrade Waterfront project. There were rumors that the vacant industrial buildings of the old Brewery would also be turned into a luxury hotel and a shopping mall, but none of that happened.
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Alison and Peter Smithson Upper Lawn Pavillion Wiltshire, 1959
1. Protective
2. Light vs. Massive
As a result, a clear statement could be made in the ongoing debate of “Don’t let Belgrade d(r)own”. The ideology behind this statement would be completely in line with the ideas of many activist groups in Serbia, who choose “The Right to the City” as their slogan, as an act of resistance against the untransparent process of the Belgrade Waterfront project. The rather capitalistic ambitions showed in several architectural competition entries for the infill and rehabilitation of this block offered the change to search for better solutions for this block and the city itself. As Henri Lefebvre sees the city as an Oeuvre, I believe that the artistic democratic expressions which can be experienced in Skadarlija, created by citizens themselves, can influence the future of Belgrade’s city.
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3. Inner world
For this reason, a function had to be brought in that doesn’t stand far from the local people and could foster and protect the current environment – the activities, the social qualities, the enjoyment, everything that is already there: to eventually keep Skadarlija in the hands of locals, from the citizens of Belgrade, from the people who built the city and its Oeuvre and everybody else who would like to contribute to all its diversity. The outcome is a residential (collective) building to give the place owners, to protect it from commercial purposes and to correctly intervene amid all kinds of bars, clubs and restaurants, which in the end tries to prevent alienation to happen in Belgrade’s Bohemian Quarter.
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1 Bicycle Parking
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6 Kafe Karakter
11 Bluz I Pivo
2 Foyer
7 Ljubimac
12 Dim Bar
3 Community Center
8 Polet Bar
13 Velika Skadarlija Restaurant
4 Restaurant Cetinjska (new)
9 Elektropionir Klub
14 Pivara Bar
5 Jedno Mesto Restaurant
10 Market hall (reuse)
15 Laundry (collective)
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Third Floor (+7.00 m) N
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25 m
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Section + 1:40 model 24
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Facade Impression - Street side
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From this side the building is more closed and shows its clear rhythm of the 3.6 meters wide grid. A explicit distinction is made between the concrete construction (public functions) and the wood construction (residences), where only at the main entrance, leading to the main plaza, the concrete goes above its ‘base’ level. Next to this entrance the parking entrance for cars, an entrance
to the residential plaza and an entrance to Velika Plaza in the back can be recognized in the facade. The transportation shafts with their stairs visible in the front façade of the residential building, are positioned in between the stepped parts and show the residents moving through the building.
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‘House of Language’
Molenbeek, Brussels (Belgium) TU Delft MSc1 Studio, Interiors Buildings Cities 01_2020
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How can we create an building that invites people with many different backgrounds? How can they communicate and feel at the same time comfortable? What kind of building could arise there at the corner in Molenbeek, where the Karperstraat meets the Oostendestraat, close to the little groceriestore, the nightstore on the opposite side of the street and the garage with its little flowers above? The resulting project is neither the representative monument of collective public life, nor is it the private house of an individual. Instead it suggests and considers those buildings that stand between; intimate figures, which both inform and are informed by the physical and social fabric of their immediate locality.
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Floor plan - Ground floor 0 30
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5m
In this project curves were introduced by means of softening the building’s impact, helping the structure melt into the surrounding context, as well as simply initiating a new type of architecture, yet with the originally used clay brick blocks. With the use of this typical material as exterior façade the building presents itself as a rough but friendly architecture, welcoming everybody from the neighborhood. The curves going inwards show passers-by the entrances of the house and metaphorically seem to invite people to go underneath the skin; to introduce one to the inner function, namely language lessons and courses for everyone who is interested. Especially in this area this type of function could help the people to get involved in local activities, help each other
with their language barriers, to eventually work unconciously on the neighborhood’s social conhesion. The composition of the façade is rather closely related to what can be find in the surroundings looking at its lintels, window sizes, materials, plinth, etc. However, due to the separation of functions, stairs had to be adeed on the outside of the building, which in the end seem the most intriguing aspect of the façade’s appearance. A piece of volume was taken out and with the help of a curve going inwards the stairs could be placed outside leading to the apartment above. A quiet neutral, but fresh exterior could form a solution to eventually subtly intervene in this tense neighborhood.
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Elevation + Section 32
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Renovation Cluster Zuid
Leiden, University of Humanity De Zwarte Hond, Internship 04_2019
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Cluster Zuid was designed by architect Joop van Stigt in the late 1970s for the Faculty of Humanities of Leiden University. It’s remarkable for its structuralist dimensioning, which corresponds to the ‘grain of the city’ and is expressed in a clear grid of mushroom-shaped concrete columns. During my internship at De Zwarte Hond I was asked to make a model for the client which communicates the renovation design and clarifies the design principles as a way to convince the stakeholders.
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The building is to be renovated and enlarged from 7,850 m2 to 11,400 m2. It will house more than 700 teaching and self-study spaces, two lecture halls, study and meeting rooms, common rooms and two libraries. The building consists of seven individual ‘houses’, each of which is the width of two Leiden canal houses. The middle house is now being demolished and replaced by a new heart with one large main entrance.
In the new situation, everyone can orient themselves from this central hall, with its new roof that lets in abundant daylight. The entire second floor will be replaced and the building will be expanded with an eighth house, made of anodised aluminum. This new addition breathes the architecture of today, so that you can see that the building is growing with the times.
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Samuel de Zee
Leiden, Doezastraat TU Delft MSc2 Studio, Analytical Models 04_2020
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This elective course was mainly about developing oneself in the making of models by analyzing one of the typical Dutch ‘hofjes’ and bringing forth a new way of communicating its principles. Following this course gave me the opportunitiy to invest in my understanding what models can mean and can be. They do not only have to be exact representations of the original design, but can be used as analytical tools; what could be emphasized and what could be left out? With Samuel de Zee-hofje in Leiden as assigned project enough space was left for own interpretations and resulted in the following models visible on the next pages.
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1. In the model ‘Street to Front Door’ the transitional spaces were emphasized on a larger scale, including sienna-red colored objects on the route to the front door from the elements that still lingered in our head. The paving, which is carved out based on reality, is recessed by its surrounding buildings. There was thus a focus on narrating the courtyard by highlighting only its typical transitions, pavement and objects, which are necessary in understanding the poetic experience.
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2. In the ‘World in a World’ model it was emphasized that the hofje is totally inside a city block. Once you’re in it you only experience the hofje, closed off from everyting that happens outside. For this reason the surrounding buildings were made abstract. By engraving the plotlines of each building within the city block, the concrete represents a rough volume, still outlining its contextual plots.
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Jean Prouvé, Demountable Houses
France TU Delft Bachelor Minor, House of the Future 12_2017
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During this model study course the focus has been on three of Prouvé’s demountable houses, all based on the ‘axial portal frame’structure. While modeling them one by one the different choices of materials, colors, shapes and constructions became visible and their changes over time turned out to be an interesting investigation, followed up by an exhibition presenting all three models in the same conditions. Besides, the used modeling techniques provided a new set of skills, particularly helpful for future projects.
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DEMOUNTABLE HOUSE TYPE 6X6 1944 PORTIQUE SYSTEM JEAN PROUVÉ
JESSE FRACKERS - JAMILLA DEN HAAN - KIRSTEN PLAT - ERIKA RICE - EMIEL VAN DER VLIES
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Maison Démontable 6x6 m, 1944
Jean Prouvé, a 20th century French architect, designer and metalworker, played a major role in manufacturing technology from industry to architecture. He was of great importance for the prefabricated housing industry in France after World War II. Prouvé’s mission was to produce highly industrialized pieces for the building industry along with mass-produced furniture. The genesis of his demountable houses came about in the early 1930s, when Jean Prouvé - up to that point an art-decotrained metal worker who produced furniture - began to experiment with architectural structures.
Entirely self-taught, Prouvé had refined by the end of the 1930s his structural system and patented the ‘axial portal frame’, the two-legged structure that served as the main structural support in all of his subsequent demountable designs. The first house, Maison Démontable 6x6 m, was designed by Prouvé to house French citizens of Lorraine and Franche-Comté displaced by World War II. The 6x6 was produced in modular elements that could be assembled in just one day by two people. The frame elements were made in steel and due to the continuing wartime metal shortages the panels and floor were made in wood.
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The second house, the Maison Métropole, was built for a competition held by France’s Ministry of Education in 1949. The goal was to create a mass-producible rural school with classroom and teacher accomodation. The Métropole Maison’s aluminium exterior looks completely different compared to the other demountable houses. Prouvé’s architecture is meant to be easily built. Indeed, all of the elements are prefabricated and can be assembled on site with only basic tools: a ladder, a screwdriver, a hammer. From there, anyone could build such a house. Fifteen examples of the Métropole House were built, mainly as part of the ’Sans Souci’ housing estate at Meudon-la-Forêt.
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Maison Métropole 8x12 m, 1949
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The third house is Maison Des Jours Meilleurs, which is completely different from the other houses. On a dished concrete base was placed a prefabricated steel central unit housing the kitchen, bathroom, and toilet; supporting a pressed steel beam, the unit constituted the substructure. The shell was made of thermoformed wood sandwich panels and the roof of aluminium slabs that also extended out to cover the porch. The public was as enthused by the idea as the building’s creators, but this 57 m2 house that took seven hours to assemble was too revolutionary for its time and the permits needed for mass-production were not forthcoming.
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Maison Des Jours Meilleurs 6.51 x 8.77 m, 1956
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Section model
Maison Démontable (metal and wood)
6x6m 1944
Maison Métropole (metal, aluminium and wood)
8 x 12 m 1949
Maison Des Jours Meilleurs (concrete, metal, aluminium and wood)
6.51 x 8.77 m 1956
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Foundation
Portal frame
Ridge Beam
Walls panels
Roofs construction
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