Design Process and Integration

Design Process and Integration Interview with Nathalie de Vries

by Erron Estrado and Tania Cortés Vargas

Nathalie de Vries is a co-founder and principal architect and urban designer of MVRDV. De Vries is renowned for a diverse body of work in a variety of scales and typologies that are grounded in connecting individuals, communities and environments. She also engages as Professor of Architectural Design at Delft University of Technology and is the former Chairman of the Royal Institute of Dutch Architects (BNA).

What prompted you and your partners to start MVRDV? What were you looking to achieve? At the time [my partners and I] all had jobs at other offices after graduating in 1990. After one or two years things started to itch a little bit. You’re working for someone else so you’re working basically with the ideas of the office and we had the urge to also do something with our own ideas. So we decided to collaborate on the Europan competition. Teams for Europan are sometimes friends, sometimes almost accidental. But in our case, we were three people who knew each other and thought we could contribute to the future of housing through this competition and give our statements. That didn’t start

MVRDV officially yet, but we were very lucky to have won the competition. But then actually other people started to think that we were an office though officially we still had our jobs. So, it was luck and accident that started the office and us looking for a way to work on our own ideas as architects.

Between now and the time that you started how has architecture changed in terms of integrating different disciplines? At the time when we started to design it was all about energy saving. It was about preventing loss of energy and to build in a different way that was almost seen a bit as a niche of people who are really into nature. Although at the time we also realized that there were more holistic ways to look at the building process and for us apart from all these energy saving issues, which were usually even embedded by law, we were very much interested in land use. This is because we noticed that there was a densification going on not only in the Netherlands but worldwide. So, we figured out we would soon lose buildable area and also, with ever denser areas, quality of life. So, we did a lot of work on researching how we could make double use of land; Activate every possible façade also the fifth elevation of our buildings in order to make liveable environments, liveable cities. For us that was a very important thing. Our very first designs already make use of elevations, we studied densities, how to densify as much as possible making use of all the available roofs and to develop new development typologies for that. Our very first buildings were porter lodges; tiny buildings. But the reason why we started our office was the VPRO office building which had a green roof and usable elevations and very neutral floor plans that were very flexible.

Can you give an example of a project at MVRDV where you had to work in an integrated way such as coordinating with a lot of different disciplines? We made one project in 2000 that was quite emblematic. This was the Dutch pavilion for the EXPO Hanover where we had windmills on roof and water retainment and

Figure 1. Villa VRPO © Rob ‘t Hart

Figure 2. Dutch Pavilion at EXPO Hanover 2000 © Joop van Reeken

then it would seep out at the bottom in dunes where the water would be cleaned again, water would fall from the sides of the facades and give water to plants, trees, etc. But you also know of course that it was only an image of that cycle. I think more and more in recent years we tried to take up as much as possible of these elements and really integrate them into the building.

So while our very first designs were more about classic integration, nowadays we really try to figure out if our buildings can be more productive. That’s different, going from passive to more productive solutions. For instance, we try to make as much as possible use of materials in a circular way in that we either reuse materials or make parts of the building demountable.

We had this green in the Dutch pavilion which for us was a sign that we can make green on different levels of the building. It doesn’t always have to be on the floor since there’s not much space anymore. Later we started to think about CO2 reduction and how many trees and plants should you put on the facades and on the rooftops

of buildings to help with that problem. So more and more we have buildings where we put in greenery on the balconies and on the roofs. We have to design systems whereby the green is really integrated into the facade design for example. So, there’s Ravel Plaza [The Valley] which is a big building we’re going to make in Amsterdam on the south axis that has mixed use program inside. There will be a lot of green all over the building. Also, the housing project in Arnhem at the Hoge Veluwe National Park [Buitenplaats Koningsweg].

So, like I said, that’s this productivity. It’s much more active actually the way we deal with sustainability nowadays. And we never stopped thinking about the density issues. We still try to make high rises with optimized shapes to maximize the floor area. We like hybrid buildings a lot. What I also try to apply, for example, is to really start a discussion with the clients about the floor to ceiling height because when they’re minimized for one function, or the depth of the floor is very particular, it makes it more difficult to reuse or transform the building when the first function is maybe not needed anymore. So there we are much more actively starting the conversation.

Is this knowledge within your firm or do you work with outside consultants as well? Well you have to keep on educating yourself so indeed we have a lot of outside consultants but nowadays we also have in-house consultants. We have people who are LEED and BREAM assessors. We now had for the second year the MVRDV Planet Week in which everybody in the office tries to engage each other in sharing information offering workshops, courses, and lectures inside the office to motivate everybody because actually it only works if everybody does it and if at every step in the design process you at least think about it.

Figure 3. Buitenplaats Koningsweg © MVRDV

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Privacy Daylight Green Privacy Daylight Green Figure 4. The Valley housing principles diagrams © MVRDV

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But we’re still living in a time where economization of building is at the forefront. So there’s a lot to do also in mentality change on the client side. In general, there’s been an awareness of what’s going on. But it’s another thing if it influences costs and investments. So sometimes, not always, it’s just a different way of doing things. So, in the projects in Arnhem, for example, we noticed that the client says let’s see where this can go. But then we noticed that for some products there were no guarantees yet and in order for people to buy the house or get a mortgage they want us to use certain certified materials. But how do you certify a second-hand building material? But even the certification office said, well this is new, it is interesting, we realize we have to think about it. You have to ask the question. I think the more people ask these questions the more things can improve.

From your experience as chairman of the BNA how important do you think it is to have integration in the built environment especially since the regulations are changing toward circularity or sustainability? At the BNA we are totally aware of this. It is also one of the main focuses of the organization in the sense that in the last years a lot of events have been organized with lectures, workshops, and trainings. Last year we launched the circular manifesto and we actively encourage our members to sign that manifesto which doesn’t say we are circular architects but that we want to be circular. It gives the most basic rules for how you can become circular. So our aim is to have as many as possible offices sign that manifesto because we want this discussion to start inside the offices but also between architects, clients, and builders. We have to make a change. No doubt about it.

As the chair of Public Building for the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment how do you instil this idea of integration within education and how do you think it will benefit the students but also the future of architecture? Public building focuses mostly around buildings that are funded with public money. I actually put in this extra layer of design thinking which is a more active approach of dealing with building for sustainability. I call it Multiplicity. From the way you build to being more productive with your building elements and materials and the whole building up to this multi-functionality or change of functionality.

It has to be more. We have introduced this notion of being aware that it is not enough to just make a design. We are responsible for a large part of CO2 production with the way we build. Building differently can really make a difference in this whole discussion. So it doesn’t matter what you make, a public or commercial building or dwelling, you can make a change. You are now learning how to design. So if you start to do that in a proper way you can start in the right way right away.