This March L4 and L5 had a unique opportunity to visit MVRDV office and to speak to the architects. Unfortunately we were asked not to take any pictures for confidentiality purposes but still this story might be interesting to those who like MVRDV projects and probably is planning to join them someday =). The office itself is nothing but ordinary but the atmosphere is simply amazing. As many architectural offices this one has plain design, white walls, pin up wall, bookcases with models. The architects are mostly young people. The office was only established in 90s.
No pictures were allowed beyond this point =((
Materials.The room is stuffed with samples of materials. The company does run material experiments, not in-house like Herzog and de Meuron but through the communication with the manufacturers. They also test the materials themselves. A good example of how they do it was made by our guide. He showed the number of glass bricks they ordered to be produced by different companies all over the world. There were real size glass bricks on his desk with different material characteristics. The bureau also ordered special glue to be invented. Of course bureau of this scale does not have resources (both funds and human resources) to produce materials themselves, but probably they do not need to at this stage. As well as Herzod and de Meuron MVRDV make 1:1 detail mock-ups. We were shown several of those along with small-scale models. For example a sheet of glass with printed patterns of bricks in different scales and colors. The project now is completed so you can see the glass farm in the attached pictures.
Image is taken from http://retaildesignblog.net/2013/08/16/glass-farm-by-mvrdv-schijndel-the-netherlands/
We also saw a scale model of the Cloud Tower and it was nice to know that they use same materials and techniques to make scale models that we use =) Cardboard, foamboard and sheets of transparent plastic. Of course they also order fancy models fro specialized offices but cardboard ones work perfectly during the design process.
Image taken from http://www.bustler.net/index.php/article/mvrdv_designs_the_cloud_for_seouls_yongsan_dreamhub
Internship. MVRDV admit interns for 6 month internship.
In this bureau there is a real feeling of cooperation between the employees. At
lunch time all team shear the table. Same table is used for brain storming
which is widely practiced. So good luck to me and those who is going to apply))
Decision making. MVRDV gives an impression that brainstorming
is really the trigger for project developing however I can’t be absolutely sure
the decision is made solely on the result of a brainstorm. This issue was not
really covered during the visit unfortunately.
Marina Goverdova
12 May
L5, BHSAD 2014
Marina, thank you for the post,pure and interesting post about influential architecture bureau. Useful information about internship!
ReplyDeleteMaria Mamykina
MVRDV is quite a large studio, so it always makes me wonder what the interpersonal mechanics are on top of the design process. Because obvisouly the bigger a studio gets, the more people it has, the more difficult it gets to correlate different interests, skills, aspirations. So what were the personal dynamic like in the studio when you visited? Was there really a sense of one big family or was it more separated into "clusters"? How many people are there in their bureau anyway?
ReplyDeleteAlso, it was interesting to read about the models. Vwery often I, personally, feel very self-conscious about the use of material. Foamboard gets really boring, cardboard can be flimsy and unprecise, etc. So its reassuring to know that "real professionals" use the same stuff we do.
Thanks for sharing and definitely all the luck in applying for an internship with them!
Sasha Klose
The way MVRDV work and experiment with materials reminds me Herzog and de Meuron approach which I really admire. I do believe that in future experimenting with material will become more and more important. Nowadays when technologies sky rockets what we miss is appreciation of natural materials. Perhaps that happens because natural materials seems a little bit borring to us to be used in modern and sometimes futuristic projects, or perhaps it happens because natural materials we are used to simply cannot be used in new buildings because of their qualities, but bureaus like MVRDV and Herzog and de Meuron are here to prove that old materials we see every day may possess new qualities and can be used in new ways we could not even think about before.
ReplyDeleteElena Khryasheva
IAD, Level 5